[Note: new entries in this column will resume on June 18.]

Name: Chris
Message: We are classroom teachers that will be tie-dying with our first graders, and wanted to know the best way to keep the colors bright, and if there is a special name brand detergent that would work best.  Should we soak the shirts in vinegar after we dye to keep the pattern from bleeding into the white areas?

No, do not soak the shirts in vinegar! There is no dye you can buy for cotton for which this will help at all. Detergent cannot make dye permanent, either; all it can do is remove excess dye.

The single most important thing is to use good dye. DO NOT USE ALL-PURPOSE DYE! All-purpose dye bleeds a little whenever it gets wet. I have received hundreds of heart-broken e-mails from people who tie-dyed with all-purpose dye and then saw their results fade as soon as they washed them.

The dye you want to use is fiber reactive dye; the most popular of these dyes for tie-dyeing is Procion MX, also sold as Procion Dyes or MX dyes. I would advise you to mail-order a "Tie Dye Party Pack" for fifty or a hundred people, however many you have, from PRO Chemical & Dye, in Massachusetts (see the bottom of their MX dyes kits page). Alternatively, you can buy a number of Jacquard brand Tie-Dye Kits from many crafts stores; the small Jacquard kit will do five adult shirts, while the large one will do ten to fifteen. The large-volume ProChem kits will cost less per shirt, however, and the dye may be fresher than what's been sitting around in a crafts store for a while. Since the shirts you will be dyeing will be small, you can probably do twice as many as the kit indicates, since the numbers are based on adult-sized t-shirts.

This may seem to be a large upfront investment, but your cost per person will be far lower than if you buy enough all-purpose dye to dye the same number of shirts, the process is easier and safer (since no boiling water is required), and the results will be tremendously better in every respect.

Be sure to also acquire enough size extra-small thin rubber gloves for every student, as well as disposable plastic aprons (or garbage bags with holes cut in them for the heads and arms), and plastic dropcloths to protect tables and possibly floors. When you buy the shirts, make sure that they are 100% cotton, and absolutely not the stain-resistant type, then prewash them in hot water before you dye them.

Once you have dyed the shirts, they must be left at a warm room temperature (70°F or higher) overnight, for the dye to make a permanent bond to the fiber. You will already have added the dye fixative (soda ash ) to the shirts by presoaking them in it, so that the dye attaches well. The next day (or even a day or two after that if it's more convenient for you), wash the excess dye out of the shirts, once with cold water and no detergent (or with Synthrapol, a special dye-removal detergent which is included with the ProChem kits), then two or three times in the hottest water available, with detergent. Your colors will be bright and permanent.

For instructions (in addition to those in the ProChem kit), see my page on "How to Dye"; information on everything else in this message is spread around my site. Be sure to check out the FAQ section.

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