Name: linda
Message: hi, well i understand you probably get tons of email and surely can't respond to them all. i don't find a concrete answer to my question and i get different answers from other sites so i do not know which way to go. one site said to soak in ash, let dry, then tis & dye. another sire says to soak and apply to wet shirts, so i'm not sure which way to go. i made my first tie dye shirts this weekend, and was to it was very important to wash in HOT water and rinse in cold. but after much searching, it appears the shirts should be washed in cold? maybe the reason my shirts look faded and NOT vibrant colors as i have seen friends made. i soaked the shirts in ash for 15 min, squeezed out, tied with rubber bands & applied dyes, so maybe i'm not doing something in the correct order. any input would be appreciated. thank you. LLG

There are different ways you can use the soda ash. All that really matters is that you somehow combine fiber reactive dye (NOT all-purpose dye!) with soda ash and cellulose fiber (that is, cotton, rayon, linen, etc. NOT polyester!) at a warm enough temperature. Washing out wrong does not turn tie-dyes pale. The order you did things in sounds just fine. So what could have gone wrong? One of the following....

Temperature:
If your dyes + fabric + soda ash combination was not warm enough (over seventy degrees F. or 21 Celsius), then the reaction will not work very well. If it is cool outside and I'm dyeing outside, I wrap each item in plastic wrap so I can put it in a warm place overnight, before washing.

Time:
At 70 degrees F (21 C), allow the dye to remain on the shirts for 24 hours before you rinse them out. Warmer temperatures do not require as much time.

Fiber:
If your shirts are 50% polyester, you will get much paler colors than if they are 100% cotton, because polyester does not dye at all, period, with any ordinary sort of dye. Were your shirts 100% cotton?

Soda ash:
This can go on the shirts in different ways. Since you are just starting out, I would advise you to do it the standard tie-dye method, which is exactly what you did. Presoak in soda ash, squeeze out, rubber band and dye - that should work fine. HOWEVER, if you accidentally grabbed the bag of urea and used that when you thought you were mixing soda ash, so that you actually did not use soda ash at all, your colors will wash out. Don't laugh - I know that some very intelligent people have done this! (Urea is commonly mixed in with the dye in tie-dyeing, just to help it stay moist longer on the fabric, so most people have it around when they tie-dye.)

Dye:
You did not use all-purpose dye, such as Rit brand dye, did you? You can't use all-purpose dye with the room temperature recipe. You must use fiber reactive dye, such as Procion MX in order to use any room temperature method, such as the usual squirt bottle technique for tie-dyeing. Pre-packaged "Tie-Dye Kits" are usually just fine. Jacquard tie-dye kits use good Procion MX dye, as do Rainbow Rock tie-dye kits. You can order a tie-dye kit containing Procion MX dye from most of the companies listed on my page of Sources for Dyeing Supplies.

Washing:
If you did all of the above correctly, then there is nothing you can do wrong in washing (except for using bleach!) that can make your colors too pale. The point of washing out properly is just to get all of the excess dye out; it has no effect on good fiber reactive dye that has already bonded properly to the fabric. Even if you did everything wrong in washing out, this is not the cause of your problem! Unless you did the washing too soon after applying the dye, that is.

The thing is that there is always excess, unattached dye, so we want to get rid of it. We don't want it coming off of the fabric onto our skin, the furniture, or other laundry. The best way to accomplish this is to wash first in cold water, just to get rid of the soda ash and any other auxiliary chemicals, then wash as many times as it takes, in hot or warm water. Hot water works more efficiently, so it'll take fewer washings if you use hot water. Warm water is kinder to delicate rayons, or sometimes you might even dye something so delicate you can only use cool water, so then you just have to wash a number of times and then be sure to wash separately from other colors when you do your laundry. Properly washed-out tie-dyes are safe to launder with even white clothes in hot water, though.

I'm guessing that either you made the urea-instead-of-soda ash mixing mistake, or you used all-purpose dye, or your temperatures after applying the dye were too low, or you did not leave the dyed items alone with the dye long enough before washing out. Or maybe you used partly-synthetic shirts. Do any of these seem likely to you?