Name: Grace
Message: Dear Paula, So good to be on your site again, WOW, it has really grown! I have a question on Procion MX on Silk with Citric Acid. 

I am trying to get a better Red color than scarlet. I need a very deep red. It took me a lot of research to get scarlet, I obtained this by mixing 80 % Magenta with 20% lemon yellow and adding chemical water of a drop of synatrapol, Urea, a tad of Ludigol and a tsp per cup of citric acid. I let it batch a minimum of 24 hours.
I also have had No sucess getting Navy on Silk this way. I am assuming black is still impossible.
Any advice?

Exactly what dyes have you used, Grace? You must buy a pure unmixed dark navy dye to have success in dyeing dark blues on lightweight silk, I think. If you are buying Procion MX dye from Dharma, buy their #22 cobalt blue. If you are buying dyes from PRO Chemical & Dye (ProChem), buy the same dye, which they call #402c mixing blue, and also try their #414 deep navy, which is a different navy Procion MX type dye. If you are buying Jacquard brand Procion MX dyes, which is the only type you are likely to find in an art supply store, get their 078 navy, which is a premixed color but very useful, in addition to their unmixed 076 cobalt blue which is the same as Dharma's cobalt blue and ProChem's mixing blue. 

Have you gotten any of ProChem's boysenberry Procion MX dye? It is a pure unmixed red-violet dye which makes a great blood red when mixed with a little yellow. This was discovered by our Dye Forum poster, Chaos; see this link:
"Reds," July 16, 2006
I think it is well worth ordering directly from ProChem. They have a good selection of dyes.

I have not used ProChem's Silk Black mixture, but it's a good idea. Unlike all other Procion MX premixed colors, it is mixed in the right proportions for use on silk, instead of cotton. For a good pure black, I recommend that you instead use either the Remazol liquid reactive black or, for the deepest richest blacks, use the Lanaset Jet Black, which is sold by ProChem. I have used the Lanaset Jet Black dye on silk and found it very easy to use and very satisfactory. It does need to be steamed, but it's an easy process - you just wrap the dye-damp silk in plastic wrap and steam it like a vegetable for half an hour, no more.

Also, can you tell me how to figure out MX CODES for the normal procion mx dyes that only have the Color and number and not the code listed. Is there a chart somewhere that lists MX CODES for the normal line of Procion mx that you find in an art store?

No, if the Procion MX dye does not appear on my table of "Which Procion MX colors are pure, and which mixtures?", then it does not have an MX code. Most of the Jacquard Procion MX dyes that are sold in art supply stores are mixtures made from just a dozen or so different pure unmixed colors. These mixtures do not have codes. They are listed in my pure versus mixed dyes chart under "Rupert, Gibbon, & Spider", the seventh vendor listed from the left.

Here is a link to a good chart of color chips for the Jacquard Procion MX dyes, on my web site. Only the ones with asterisks are unmixed dyes. Only the unmixed dyes will perform predictably on silk. The others, premixed from several different colors, may be very nice, but the color they make will not be the same as the color they make on cotton.

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