Name: Karen

Country: USA

Message: I want to order dyes to do a family tie dye party with my kids.  Typically we use what we can find at the drug store, but we want to step it up a notch.  Can we mix as little as we want or do we need to mix the entire packet of dye?  Thank you!

When you mail-order good fiber reactive dyes, you will be able to mix up just as much dye as you want to use each time. You will open the jar, take out the dye you need, and dissolve it in water, mixed with urea. You can use four teaspoons of dye per cup for bright colors, or a half-teaspoon per cup for a light pastel color. Keep the jar with the remaining dye powder tightly closed, and it will stay good for a long time, usually at least a year or two.

Also buy soda ash, which is the dye fixative for fiber reactive dyes; you can mix up your soda ash presoak fresh each time, or cover and save the bucket from a previous dyeing session, because soda ash stays good forever, even after it's been mixed with water. 

After you have mixed them with water (usually with urea as well), the dyes in the bottles will stay good for a week or two, assuming that they don't have any soda ash mixed with them. If they have soda ash mixed with them, they will last half an hour or so. Some tie-dyeing kits have the soda ash already mixed in with the dye powder, but if you are mail-ordering your dyes from a dye supplier, the dye powders will not contain the soda ash.

Will this be your first time using good tie-dyeing dyes? The only dyes I've seen at the drug store have been all-purpose dyes, such as Rit All Purpose Tint and Dye, which is unsuitable for use in tie-dyeing cotton more than one color. You'll get incredibly better results if you use good dyes! Good dyes make your work much more beautiful, and they are easier to use, as well. Fiber reactive dyes, such as Procion MX dyes, stay bright years longer than all-purpose dye, even if you wash all of your clothing together without sorting by color.

If you have been lucky enough to find a good tie-dyeing kit at your store that's not the Rit kit, then you have been using Procion MX type dyes. There are many brands of good tie-dyeing kits, such as the Jacquard tie-dyeing kit, the Funky Groovy Tie Dye Kit, and the various kits made by Tulip, Rainbow Rock, and Dylon. If you mail-order jars of dye from a good dye supplier, such as PRO Chemical & Dye in Massachusetts, or Dharma Trading Company in California, you will get to choose from over a hundred different premixed colors of Procion MX dye, and the dyes will cost considerably less, per garment dyed, when you buy your dye in bulk. See "Sources for Dyeing Supplies Around the World".

Some tie-dyeing kits come with small bags of dye powder, and some with the dye powder already in the plastic squirt bottle used to apply the dye. It's very important to keep this dye powder dry until you are ready to mix it with water. To save some of the dye from a tie-dyeing kit, transfer it to an airtight container or a ziplock freezer bag. (The freezer bags are thicker and higher quality than the storage or sandwich bags.) Or, store each color in a separate sandwich bag, and store all of the bags inside a larger air-tight bag or container. While you are transferring the dye powder from one container to another, be careful not to breathe any of the powder, and watch out for airborne particles that can stain furnishings. It's best to wear a dust mask over your nose and mouth when working with any loose powder, including both dyes and cleaning products.

I find that dyes last longer when stored in jars, rather than bags. The Procion MX dyes at the good mail-order suppliers come in jars that can be tightly sealed. Sometimes the dyes have lasted me considerably longer than the one to two years promised by the manufacturer.

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