Name: Elle
Message: Hello. I looked through your website but have a contradiction to ask about. I have an item marked as 100 polyester knit. From your website, I would gather polyester usually needs heat to dye. But my garment says medium temperatures only. should I worry? I understand about your volume. If you have time to include any response, a short one is adequate. Like, you doubt it matters. I love the cut and the knit, hate the color.

Yes, you are right to worry. You simply cannot immersion-dye polyester at less than a boil. Polyester actually prefers temperatures well above boiling for dye take-up, so we use a rather toxic carrier chemical to reduce the required temperature to boiling, but paler shades can be reached at the boil without the carrier. However, note that this is true only for a special kind of dye. Polyester can be dyed only with disperse dye. It cannot be dyed with an all-purpose dye, such as Rit®!

You can use iron-on designs made with Transfer Fabric Crayons to decorate polyester without boiling it at all, but obviously this is not suitable for dyeing an entire garment with a single unmottled color.

I don't like the idea of boiling an already-sewn garment for an hour, as you would have to do in order to dye it a solid color. Surely the item would suffer significantly from such harsh treatment!

In this case, I think you'd better find another blouse. Note that 100% cotton, or other plant fibers such as rayon, linen, or hemp, can easily be dyed with cool water fiber reactive dyes. Do not use all-purpose dye to dye clothing, as it requires extremely hot water to work at all well, which is apt to shrink the clothing.


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