Name: Barbara

Message: My three-year-old daughter added a tye died shirt in with cotton dress shirts. Now my husband has turquoise elbows. I need to fix this mistake for her. She is upset because she thought that she was helping.

Any type of loose dye is best removed by using hot water. Warm water will work better than cold water, and hot water will work better than warm water. Use the hottest water that is safe for the shirt. If the dye is not removed by this treatment, soak the shirt in the hottest water you can, then wash again in hot water, using any sort of detergent.

Hot water should remove all of the transferred dye, because the dye has not been fixed in place by any sort of chemical reaction. There should be no need for an additional treatment. If there is unwanted dye remaining after washing and, if necessary, soaking in hot water, you can use a treatment called Rit Color Remover. This treatment may remove the original color of the shirt, in addition to removing the unwanted dye. Follow the package instructions closely; if you use it in the washing machine, you will probably need to buy more than one box.

Transferred dye should never have been a problem for you, though, because tie-dyed shirts should be safe to wash with anything. Good ones are. There must be something wrong with your tie-dyed shirt. Properly dyed and washed tie-dyes, made with good fiber reactive dyes such as Procion MX dye, are perfectly safe to wash with dress shirts at any temperature. A good tie-dyed shirt should not have any loose dye that can transfer to another garment.

Of course, even when good dyes are used, and fixed properly, it is necessary to wash out any unattached loose dye before wearing. Perhaps your shirt just needs to be washed in hot water, to remove any last bits of excess unfixed dye. The best way to wash out excess dye after tie-dyeing is to wash once in cold water, and then wash in very hot water, 140°F or hotter. This washing-out treatment will remove any unattached excess dye, so that it will be safe to wash the tie-dyed clothing with other clothing.

Unfortunately, some novice tie-dyers use inferior dyes, such as all-purpose dye, which will transfer easily to other garments, even after thorough washing. I strongly recommend against ever using all-purpose dyes for tie-dyeing cotton. All-purpose dye fades quickly, unlike fiber reactive dyes, and will tend to wash out in warm or hot water. It's not worth going to the trouble of dyeing if you're not going to use a good kind of dye.

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