Name: Taal
Message: Thank you for the easy-to-follow instructions. Now that i have tie-dyed - how would you recommend to wash the garment so that the dye does not dye the white areas of the fabric?

Did you use a good fiber reactive dye, such as Procion MX dye? If so, the most important step is to allow so much time for the dye+fabric reaction to take place that there will remain no unreacted dye to stain in the wrong places. I like to leave tie-dyed items to react overnight at 70 degrees F (21 C.) or above, just to make sure of this. Sufficient ambient warmth is essential; if you have dyed out-of-doors in cool weather, or in a cold room, you should wrap each item in plastic wrap (carefully shielding lighter regions from darker regions with the plastic wrap so that they do not touch!), then move them to a warmer location overnight.

The next step is to rinse the garments out once in cool water with no ordinary detergent. The point is to remove all auxiliary chemicals such as soda ash before exposing the garment to heat. If you have Synthrapol, you can use it in this step, but do not use an ordinary high-pH detergent. Some people do this rinsing step in the sink; I like to just dump dyed items directly into a washing machine full of cold water for the initial rinsing.

Finally, wash the garment several times in the hottest water it can tolerate, using either Synthrapol or an ordinary laundry detergent. (If for safety reasons you have set your hot water to 120 degrees, you can turn up the thermostat on your water heater temporarily, or turn off the cold water to the washing machine just until it has filled.) Washing in hot water will remove all unattached dye. Once all unattached dye has been removed, you can safely wash your brightly dyed items in even hot water, even with white clothing, and there will be no dye transfer. If you want to test to be sure that all excess dye has been removed, place your garment between layers of damp white fabric and press with a hot iron; if no color transfers, you know that you are done with the initial washing-out.

If, however, you did not use a fiber reactive dye, such as Procion MX dye, but instead used an all-purpose dye such as Rit brand dye, you must proceed very differently. First, the all-purpose dye must be heat-set while still wet, either by simmering at length in the dyepot at 190 degrees F., or by wrapping it in plastic wrap and steaming for half an hour, just as you might steam vegetables. After the items dyed with all-purpose dye have cooled, they should be rinsed out carefully in cool water, and then treated in the washing machine with a special mail-order cationic fixative, such as Retayne or Raycafix. (You can buy Retayne and similar dye fixatives from most of the dye suppliers on my list of Sources for Dyeing Supplies.) Otherwise, all-purpose dye will inevitably run in the laundry. Items dyed with all-purpose dye should always be washed in cool water, preferably hand-washed only, and always washed separately from other garments.

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