I have a dress that is 57% cotton, 43% acetate and the lining is 100% acetate and is also dry clean only. How I would go about dying this dress?

Name: Ashly

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Message: Hi so I have a dress that is 57% cotten, 43% acetate and the lining is 100% acetate and is also dry clean only. And I read on your site under polyester blends to use disperse dye, and for fabric like cotten most people use reactive dyes. I was just wondering how I would go about dying this dress. Would I use both dyes and if so how would I do that?

You can't dye this dress, because, as you point out, it is not washable. There is no way to properly dye anything without washing it a great many times. "Dry clean only" means "don't try to dye this".

There may be water-soluble finishes on the fabric that will be spoiled on the first washing. Undoubtedly, when you wash the dress, the cotton in the outside will shrink, while the acetate in the lining will not. The lining will stick out under the outer part of the dress, and the shape of the dress will be ruined.

If this were a washable dress, you'd probably want to dye it with a mixture of iDye Poly, for acetate, and plain iDye, for cotton; these two dyes can actually be mixed together in one pot and applied at the same time, heating the dress in the dye to 160°C-180°F and keeping it at that temperature for an hour, stirring constantly; the cooking pot you use for this should not be reused for food, ever again. Alternatively, the dress could be dyed in two steps, once with superior fiber reactive dye, such as Procion MX, for the cotton, and again with disperse dye, for the acetate. Or, if a paler color will work for you, you could stick to only the much easier-to-use reactive dye for the cotton, and leave the acetate undyed.

However, there is no point in trying to dye a dress that will be ruined by dyeing or washing. You must prewash the dress to remove any invisible stains or finishes that would interfere with dyeing, and you must wash the dress several times after dyeing to remove excess unattached dye; in addition, the dyeing process itself will be at least as damaging as the washing step, since it requires a great deal of water. Procion fiber reactive dye, for only the cotton fibers in the dress,can be applied in room-temperature water, but dyeing acetate requires cooking the dress in the dye.

For more information see my page, "Can I dye clothing that is labeled 'dry clean only'?".

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Posted: Thursday - February 16, 2012 at 06:57 AM

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I have a dress that is 57% cotton, 43% acetate and the lining is 100% acetate and is also dry clean only. How I would go about dying this dress?

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