Message: Hello,
I need some help in finding a tutorial for dyeing fabrics with dyes coming from Syria. A friend of mine offered me dyes bought in a market place in Syria. They just come in small plastic bags labelled yellow, blue, green etc.. I am used to dye fabrics with procion mx colors but have no idea how to handle these one. Do you have an idea or know an address where I can turn to to find help.
Thank you very much in advance. 
Best greetings from Luxembourg

These dyes from Syria could be anything, including a number of possibilities that would give you bad results, wasting all of your effort and your other materials. I would not use unidentified dyes for any project whose outcome is important to me. If a project is worth spending time on, it's worth using known materials of demonstrated quality.

The fact that your dye was purchased in Syria gives you no information as to what kind of dye it is. There are dye manufacturing plants in Damascus that synthesize many different types of dye. It's the same as dye sold anywhere in the world; often people expect dyes found in a more out-of-the-way place to be natural dyes, but in fact synthetic dyes have been popular items of trade throughout the world since the beginning of the industry.

Synthetic dyes have a bad reputation in the middle east, or at any rate among western connoisseurs of middle eastern textiles, because in many cases they have been applied improperly and will lose their color quickly. Natural dyes have a better reputation, though in most cases they are distinctly inferior to a good synthetic dye that is used properly. This is because the people who dye fibers for carpets use the wrong synthetic dyes, or apply them incorrectly. You will never get a good result if you apply a vat dye using the correct recipe for an acid dye, or vice versa, or if you use a cotton dye for wool, or a wool dye for cotton. It is far better to use natural dyes, and apply them with the correct recipe, than to use synthetic dyes and apply them incorrectly.

You can run a series of tests in order to try to identify the class of each of the different dye colors that you have, if it's worth it to you to spend a lot of time and effort, and invest some possibly wasted money in the cost of additional materials.

First, test to see if the dye is readily soluble in water. If it is very difficult to dissolve, it is probably either vat dye or disperse dye. Vat dye is used for dyeing natural fibers, but it must be dissolved in a reducing solution, usually a mixture of sodium hydroxide (caustic lye) and sodium dithionite (found in Rit Color Remover and similar products).  Although vat dyes are excellent when used correctly, they are very unsuitable for novice dyers, and, if you want to use vat dyes, you certainly should begin with known materials and a trustworthy recipe. In contrast, disperse dye is used only for dyeing synthetic fibers, such as nylon, polyester, acetate, and acrylic. It requires high heat to transfer into the fiber. If you use disperse dye on a natural fiber, it might leave a stain at first, but it will not dye satisfactorily.

If the dye is soluble in water, then it might be fiber reactive dye, but that is probably the least likely alternative. It is more likely that an unidentified water-soluble dye is either basic dye (cationic dye), acid dye, or direct dye. Basic dyes will work on many different fibers, though they will wash out quickly and fade very quickly in sunlight, but they are the only dyes that work very easily to dye acrylic yarn to a bright shade in very hot water.

Acid dyes are used only for protein fibers, such as wool and silk, and also, oddly, for the synthetic fiber nylon, but not for any other synthetic fiber. To use acid dyes, you will need to mix a suitable quantity of vinegar or another acid with water, dissolve the dye and add it, then heat this dyebath with your fabric to the highest temperature suitable for the fabric, just under a boil for wool, or 85°C (185°F) for silk or nylon, and hold it at that temperature for half an hour or longer, while stirring, before letting the fabric cool in the dyebath. Direct dyes are used only for cellulose fibers such as cotton and linen, but they will also add some color to protein fibers; instead of acid, you use salt to help in the dyeing process, though the amount of salt needed varies dramatically according to exactly which type of direct dye you are using, which you cannot know without some very complex experimentation. To complicate matters, some but not all acid dyes can function as direct dyes, or vice versa, though neither will be as satisfactory as a very good type of acid dye on wool, nor as good as any fiber reactive dye on cotton.

There are still more possibilities. The colored powder might be pigments, rather than dyes, which will not stick to any fiber without a binder; see "Fabric Paints: a different way to color fibers". Or, they might even be naphthol dyes, which I don't recommend using in the home or art studio.

All in all, I think that the best procedure would be to discard the unlabeled dyes, since you do not know what type they are, and look for a better source of known dyes. Fiber reactive dyes are by far the most satisfactory type of dye, if you are dyeing cotton or other plant fibers, and they also work very well on silk. If you are looking for a cheaper source of dye, it is possible to find one without compromising on dye quality. Fiber reactive dyes tend to be very expensive when purchased in small craft stores in Europe. Some European dye artists prefer to order dyes from one of the less expensive dye suppliers in the US; of course, the standard shipping listed on the web sites is expensive enough to wipe out any savings, but if you call on the telephone to order, you can request the slowest and cheapest form of shipping. While many suppliers of Procion MX dyes in Europe charge about $1.50 or even $3 for enough Procion MX dye to color one pound of fiber, several excellent suppliers in the US sell the same quantity of dye for only about 50¢, if you buy your dye in jars of at least two ounces (57 grams). See "comparison of dye costs", as well as my page listing Sources for Dyeing Supplies Around the World.

Instead of discarding the dye, you could dissolve some in water and see how well it works for painting on paper. In this case, it will not matter how washfast the dyes are. Before using them for painting anything big, test the colors for lightfastness by placing the paper you've colored with them in a bright sunny window, saving half of each sample in a dark place. If the colors do not fade much after a month or two, they are probably safe enough to use as paints. However, please keep in mind that you do not know whether these are safe dyes or highly toxic dyes, and take appropriate safety precautions.

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