Name: Melanie West
Country: usa
Message: There is a web page FLUORESCENTWORKS.COM that advertises "the one the only fluoroscent tie dye t-shirt".  Any ideas on how they are making these, as I've not ever seen any fluorescent dyes?

They are almost certainly not using fluorescent dyes, but, instead, are using fluorescent fabric paints, also known as pigment dyes. Instead of bonding directly to the fiber as dyes do, these pigments are essentially glued onto the fibers with an acrylic binder. Note that, among the tie-dyed t-shirts at that site, only one is colored with true fluorescent colors; the rest of their tie-dyed t-shirt page is devoted to non-fluorescent fiber reactive dyes, in the usual brilliant though non-fluorescent neon-like colors. They also sell Anvil's pigment dyed solid-color shirts in true fluorescents. Pigment dye will invariably fade more quickly than fiber reactive dyes, because the particles of pigment are on the outside of each fiber, where they tend to wear off.

You can do this yourself with the fluorescent colors of Dharma Pigment Dye, which is a type of fabric paint, or with other fluorescent fabric paints, such as Jacquard's Dye-Na-Flow. These lines of fabric paints contain mostly non-fluorescent fabric paints, but also five or so colors of true fluorescents. When working with fabric paint, you're not likely to be able to get such smooth solid colors as they get, but you should get good results for tie-dyeing. 

Your best results would probably come from using Procion dyes to do a background in turquoise, fuchsia, and lemon yellow, then, after washing out as usual and drying, applying the fluorescent pigment dye to make the colors "pop". You can dilute the pigment dye and use it like tie-dye dye, or you can paint it directly on the regions of similar colors of non-fluorescent dyes.

There is one good fluorescent fiber reactive dye, Remazol Fluorescent Yellow FL. It is a brilliant fluorescent yellow, and it forms a good permanent covalent bond to the cellulose fiber, like other fiber reactive dyes. Unfortunately, it is not sold in quantities small enough for an individual user. The European dye company Dystar sells Remazol Fluorescent Yellow FL in packages of 5 kilograms each, or larger, which is certainly prohibitive for the vast majority of hand dyers. Until a company like Dharma or Jacquard Products repackages this dye into more affordably-sized packages, it's out of reach for us as hand dyers.

Dharma Trading Company sells a true fluorescent yellow dye, but it is not intended for use on cotton. It's an acid dye. They recommend using it on silk, wool, hair, or nylon. PRO Chemical & Dye sells the fluorescent acid dyes Rhodamine B and Flavine Yellow among their WashFast Acid Dye series, which, again, are not suitable for cotton t-shirts. They'd work on nylon, silk, or wool. None of these true fluorescent dyes would be very satisfactory on cotton. They are also extremely sensitive to permanent fading in sunlight. Fluorescent fabric paint is much more suitable for making true fluorescent t-shirts.

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