Name: Chelsea

Message: I've already tie died a shirt but I don't know how to wash it without all the dies going together. I used RIT die. Please let me know.

The all-purpose dye you used is not a washfast dye. You cannot wash your shirt without also washing out at least some of the dye with every washing. Did you apply your dye by simmering the clothing in a cooking pot with the dye? If so, you can wash it, but only by hand, gently, in cold water. 

If you used warm, cool, or room-temperature water to tie-dye with all-purpose dye, don't even bother trying to save it. Rit is a hot water dye and will not bond to the fiber in cooler water. Just wash the dye out of the shirt with hot water, so you can try again after you buy some more appropriate dye. A small amount of dye remaining in the shirt can be dyed over.

It is much better if you use a completely different type of dye, to start with, for tie-dyeing. All-purpose dye is a hot water dye which cannot be used for tie-dyeing at room temperature.

In order to make any all-purpose dye acceptably washfast, you must apply a commercial dye fixative called Retayne. You will have to buy your Retayne by mail-order, unless you have a good local quilting supply store, but it's not expensive and there are several different companies from which you can order it. See my page about Commercial Dye Fixatives.

The best dyes to use for tie-dyeing are cool water fiber reactive dyes, such as Procion MX dyes. Look carefully at the brand name on the package. The Rit dye company does not sell this kind of dye; they sell only all-purpose dyes. If you want to use a cool water dye, you must look for another brand. If you can find a tie-dye kit with the brand name "Jacquard" on it, this is the very best quality of dye for tie-deing, and will give tremendously better results, as the colors will be much brighter and will last through a hundred washings, unlike Rit dye. Some crafts stores sell other brands of good fiber reactive dye: the Rainbow Rock tie-dye kits and the Tulip tie-dye kits will work pretty well, too. 

The method used for dyeing with all-purpose dye is much more difficult than the method for using a cool water tie-dye kit. In order to use all-purpose dye to tie-dye properly, first order some Retayne so that you can use it to fix the dye afterwards. Put the all-purpose dye in a non-aluminum cooking pot (not to be used for food again, since all-purpose dye, like all clothing dye, is not food-safe) with water and heat it to a simmer, 190°F. Tie your shirt and then submerge it in the simmering hot dyebath for half an hour. For more details, see the instructions at How can I tie dye with all-purpose dye? Do not omit the use of Retayne at the end, when dyeing with all-purpose dye; if you do, be sure to hand wash your finished shirt separately from other clothing, using cool water.

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Name: John

Message: Your tie dye web site is fabulous. It looks like it took a lot of time to put together plus you MADE ALL THOSE TIE DYE CLOTHES!!!  Amazing.  You have given me lots of ideas.  I don't know what soda ash is though. Can I buy that at the store or the garden shop?

Thanks.  Keep up the great work.  You're an inspiration to me.

Soda ash can be purchased wherever you buy your dyes. If you're buying fiber reactive dyes at your local crafts store, you might be buying a brand of dye that has soda ash or a substitute mixed in already. These brands include Rainbow Rock, Tulip, and Dylon Permanent. Check your package instructions carefully to determine whether they want you to add a separate fixative; this is almost always soda ash.

There are some dyes that do not work any better with soda ash than without. These include the unfortunately ubiquitous all-purpose dyes, which can be found in many grocery stores and pharmacies. There's no point in using soda ash with all-purpose dye, but then there's no point in using all-purpose dye at all, in tie-dyeing. All-purpose dye requires an extended immersion of your fabric with the dye in near-boiling water, its colors tend to be poor, its price per garment is very high, and it bleeds forever in the laundry. Do not use all-purpose dye for tie-dyeing.

The most economical way to buy your soda ash, once you've started mail-ordering Procion MX or another good fiber reactive dye, is in a 5-pound plastic jug from the local hardware store or any other store that sells swimming pool supplies. Check the fine print on the front of the label to be sure that you are buying sodium carbonate. You do not want to buy sodium BIcarbonate (also known as baking soda), because it will not increase the pH enough. You can also just include soda ash in your order, when you buy your fiber reactive dye.

For more information, see my FAQ: 
What is soda ash, and what's it for in dyeing?

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Name: Emma
Message: Hi, i am currently in the middle of my A-Level chemistry coursework, and i have done it on the fastness of different dyes on different materials. So far your website has been a fantastic help to not only the theory of my work, but also in doing the practical component too.
I need to know the chemical formula and structure of the 4 dyes i used to complete the write up, so far i have the structure of Procion red MX-5B (found on your site!!) but i still need acid blue 40, direct red 23 and disperse yellow 7 but i am having no luck in finding them.
Do you know the structures of those dyes, they arent on the FAQ section of your site so i hope you can help. 

Your first one's very easy. Try a web search with "acid blue 40", including the quotes. The University of South Carolina (as I write this, the top hit in Google) provides both its absorption spectrum and its structure:

Note the sulfonate group, -SO3Na, important in making the dye soluble in water.

Direct red 23 is a little more difficult. A search for "direct red 23", with the quotes, didn't turn up a page as useful as the one above, although eChinaChem.com gives its molecular formula as C35H25N7Na2O10S2 and its CAS# as 3441-14-3. Searching the catalog of the Sigma Aldritch chemical company yields a drawing of the chemical structure; direct red 23 is a large molecule, as is typical for direct dyes: 



Direct dyes must be large molecules in order for the relatively weak intermolecular interactions to encourage it to stick to cellulose, though direct dyes as a rule are less washfast than acid dyes and much less washfast than fiber reactive dyes. Two sulfonate groups aid in making this dye water soluble. Note that the chemical formula is slightly different than the one given by eChinachem.com.

The online catalog at Sigma Aldritch is also helpful with the structure of disperse yellow 7:


Disperse dyes are typically very poorly water soluble, which is why they are often applied as heat transfers, via dye sublimation, and I think that you can see that this molecule looks pretty much hydrophobic, with only one hydroxyl group and nothing else that looks likely to add water solubility.


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Name: Bonnie
Message: Can you dye 55% cotton and 45% polyester materials?  If so, which product should I use?  These are dining room chair slip covers in ivory. Thank you.

Are they washable? You can't dye them if they're not washable. Be careful to avoid shrinkage, as slipcovers become useless if they are too small to fit well on their furniture.

The 45% polyester will not dye with any easy-to-use dye. See "Dyeing Polyester".

The 55% cotton can be dyed with cool water fiber reactive dyes, such as Procion MX dyes. However, dyeing only 55% of the fibers in a blend will result in a paler color, less intense and less bright. If you want a peach color, use a bright orange dye; if you want grey, use a deep black dye. If you want a bright color, forget this project, because you cannot get one on 45% polyester fabric.

Whatever you do, avoid all-purpose dye. All-purpose dyes are hot water dyes which work best when the fabric is simmered with the dye for half an hour at a temperature just below boiling. This temperature will shrink most cottons badly. Even then, the colors of all-purpose dyes tend to be dull, and the dye washes out with every laundering, forever. You will be much better off if you order some Procion MX dye by mail-order, or use Dylon Permanent brand dyes, which you might be able to find in your local fabric or crafts store.

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Name: Dianne
Message: Hi - I am so grateful to you for your wonderful site!  I've already ordered the Elmer's glue gel to use as a resist (I've been trying to make a cloud-print turquoise shirt for two years now), and I'll try your suggestions on dyeing denim this weekend.  What I wanted to ask you, if you have a moment, is how you avoided having the dye spread into the white spots on your husband's leaf shirt - did you use thickener?  I have the same question on your pipetted mandala - did you thicken the dyes so the spots wouldn't spread into each other?  

For the leaf shirt, I used unthickened dyes, sprayed with a light hand, using the fine mist setting on an inexpensive hand sprayer, probably one I bought at the local drugstore. The fine drops of dye were small enough to spread only a little. I had to turn the shirt over to apply dye to the other side, because the dye did not soak through the shirt. (When spraying dyes or paints, be sure to wear a face mask to avoid breathing any droplets of dye, which can produce serious allergies.)

On the mandala, again I used unthickened dyes, but applied very small drops of dye solution by hand from a dropper. The drops made very small spots even when they had spread as much as they were able to, due to their small volume. The dropper I used was a laboratory automatic micropipette. These are too expensive to buy for this purpose (I had them already for other reasons), but you might be able to make very small droplets with a plastic disposable pipette, smaller than you can make with a regular eyedropper. Alternatively, you might use a small-volume syringe with a blunt tip in place of the usual needle.

Here's a link to a site with pictures of the sort of pipettes I'm suggesting. (I have not ordered from this company and am using them only for an illustration.) You can often find disposable transfer pipettes sold in small lots on eBay.

Pia Fish posted on the Dye Forum about using small syringes to measure  dye, see this link. Although her posting concerns only the measurement of dye, it's also an excellent solution to the problem of how to dispense small drops.

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Name: Emma

Message: I like your website a lot! It has helped me with my science project. See I am 11 years old and I am doing a science project about dying.  am seeing which dye works best out of 3 dyes; Rit,Rainbow Rock, and Dlyon. I am following the package instructions of each dye. On Rit, it says to add laundry detergent to the dye bath. I was wondering why it says to add that and how it helps.

Most dyes sold by the Rit dye company are a type of dye called "all-purpose" dye. It is a mixture of two different types of hot water dye: "direct" dye, which works on cotton, rayon, and silk, and "acid" dye, which works on wool, nylon, and silk. The main purpose of the laundry detergent is probably to help the dye penetrate the fabric. It does this by reducing surface tension. Surface tension is a property of water that makes water molecules stick together. Reducing surface tension helps many chemicals to dissolve more easily in water.

Another possible use of laundry detergent in dyeing would be to increase the pH of the water, because many laundry detergents include a chemical called soda ash. Direct dye (one part of the all-purpose dye mixture) does not need soda ash to work, though. Dyes that need soda ash work better when you use pure soda ash, instead of laundry detergent, anyway.

What kind of fabric are you using for your tests? 100% cotton is usually the best choice. Do not try to dye polyester fabric. None of the dyes you have chosen will work on polyester.

Direct dye does not need chemicals other than salt to work, but it needs very hot water to make its best attachment to fabric. In contrast, fiber reactive dye requires soda ash to work well, but it can be used in cool water (70°F or higher), and it attaches much more permanently. The colors produced by fiber reactive dyes are better, and they are easier to apply since they do not need to be heated with the fabric.

Dylon is a dye company that sells many different types of dye. You will need to specify which of the Dylon types of dye you are using. The easiest to find in the US is Dylon Permanent dye. It is a type of fiber reactive dye. However, Dylon also makes a dye called Dylon Multi Purpose dye, which is, like Rit dye, an all-purpose dye, which is a mixture of direct dye and acid dye.

Dylon Permanent dye contains fiber reactive dyes that are known as Drimerene K dyes. There is another kind of Dylon dye which can sometimes be found in the US, which is called Dylon Cold Water Dye. This is a different kind of fiber reactive dye, known as Procion MX dye.

Rainbow Rock kits also include Procion MX type dye, so they are much more like the Dylon Cold Water or Dylon Permanent dyes. The same dye is sold by the same company, Duncan Crafts, under the Tulip brand name, as well.

Dylon Permanent Dye and Rainbow Rock dye include the soda ash or other chemicals needed to raise the pH in order to make these fiber reactive dyes work. Dylon Cold Water dye is sold with a separate packet of soda ash for you to add for yourself. Rit dye contains no chemical adjuncts other than salt, but it does contain a type of dye that is of no use to you, since it is a combination of two different types of dye that work on different types of fabric.

To test a dye, you should see if it washes out of your fabric. A good dye will not wash out. If you wash fabric dyed with all-purpose dye five times in very hot water, you will probably end up with faded fabric. In contrast, if fiber reactive dyes are applied correctly, they will last for a hundred washings in hot water. However, the very first washing will remove some dye because not all of the dye you use will attach to the fiber, so the fabric will be lighter after the very first washing even for fiber reactive dye.

Good luck in your science fair project. You will need to reference this message in your bibliography. Here is one appropriate format:

     Burch, Paula E. "Why does the Rit dye package 
     say to add laundry detergent to the dye bath? How 
     does it help?" [Weblog entry.] All About Hand 
     Dyeing Q&A. 18 Mar. 2007. (http://www.pburch.net/
     dyeing/dyelog/B1063361308/C22699859/E20070319101910/) 

End your reference with the date on which you accessed this page.
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