Name: Amy

Message: I have searched your website and I have tried everything. I need help. We are in our 3rd year of dyeing so we are still really new at this. We are getting very busy so we are making a lot of shirts. Our shirts are coming out muddy. By muddy I mean the white is tinted blue or purple but not by much. We were following the instructions on the True Tie Dye videos. After visiting your website a few weeks ago, we quit using the synthrapol and we turned up our hot water heater. We do a cold rinse first then spin it out then fill it with hot water and let it do a double rinse and spin. The shirts look better but the white still isn't as white as it should be. So the today I started making the doubel rinses be warm instead of cold. We are using the Procion MX dyes from Dharma and our water is reading over 140 degrees right out of the tap. Is there anything else we can try to get the white whiter!!! Thanks for your website. You are a lifesaver!

Most importantly, are you allowing your dyes to react with the fabric for long enough? To avoid permanent backstaining, it is best to allow extra time, at warm enough temperatures, that all of the dye molecules have fully reacted. Some will react with the fabric, and some with the water, but if you allow enough time, all will have reacted. This is very important because it prevents still-reactive dye from permanently staining another part of the shirt when you wash it out. If you allow overnight at 70°F or higher, and keep the fabric moist with either plastic wrap or by including urea in your dye mixtures, then all of the dye should have reacted. If, however, you wash the shirts out as soon as they've gotten an intense enough color, then some of the dye will still be active, and can easily stain another part of the shirts. If the temperature falls below 70°F (21°C) during the reaction time, you should find a way to increase the temperature.

When dye that has fully reacted with the water stains another part of the shirts, it's via very weak bonds which can be washed out in hot water. When dye is allowed to react with the fabric in the wrong place, though, the color is permanent and cannot be removed even by boiling.

My next suggestion would be to turn off the washer before it starts the cool or warm rinse, and repeat the hot washing. It's not that the cold or warm rinse does any harm, but it's a waste of water until you've completed the hot water washing. You might need to do more washing. Try soaking in hot water and then washing again in hot water.

A third important consideration: do you use water softener? Hard water makes it much harder to rinse out the dyes. Use the sodium hexametaphosphate that Dharma sells or the Calgon that Jacquard Products sells, or the Metaphos that ProChem sells. Do not use liquid Calgon from the grocery store, as it contains different chemicals that can interfere with dyeing.

Another issue to consider is starch in the fabric. Are you using PFD shirts from Dharma? They are usually very reliable. Shirts from other sources might contain starch or another problematic sizing, if they're not labeled PFD.

Are you prewashing your shirts in hot water before you dye them? That probably won't make any difference to how white the whites stay, though. And you are using soda ash, of course, right? Synthrapol is fine to use.

I hope one or more of these ideas help. Please let me know.

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