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Friday, September 25, 2009
a wide brush or tool to cover large areas of fabric with wax
mixing colors for a medium gray on cotton yarn
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Baby bottle disinfectant as a dye discharge
Monday, September 14, 2009
Redyeing a new floor-length silk chiffon gown
at Paradise Fibers
Washfast Acid dyes
Also known as Nylomine dyes, excellent for use on silk, wool, and nylon. One ounce of dye will dye six pounds of fiber!
Message: I'm a complete novice to dyeing and found your site to be an exceptionally valuable resource. I looked through the FAQ section and did not see anything that I could identify with what I am looking for, so I hope you won't mind my question?
I just bought a floor-length silk chiffon Grecian/Goddess gown from BCBG (over the internet) in the colour they called "glade." When I received the gown, I found to my disapointment that the colour was quite a bit lighter than the picture on the web and was closest to the colour swatch for Procion MX dye called Avocado.
I want to dye it the same colour but a quite a few shades deeper. The colour I want is not found in Procion MX; it seems to fall between their Forest and Olive Greens, but a couple of shades darker than either.
How do I go about tub-dyeing this gown a very deep warm green without a hint of blue, but yet not too brown?
I do not have any swatches of this material to experiment with, and would hate to ruin this gorgeous and expensive item due to my inexperience.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
I'm afraid I can't really recommend that you try to dye anything that you can't bear to ruin. Sometimes one panel of a commercial garment, although identical in color before you dye it, will be darker or lighter than the rest after you dye it, due to its having been cut from a different bolt of fabric with slightly different affinity for the dye.
If you do dye this dress, I recommend against using Procion MX dyes. Although Procion MX dyes work extremely well on silk, the colors on the swatches you looked at were derived from testing on cotton fabric. Since silk is composed of an entirely different material than cotton (silk is made of a protein from insects, while cotton is made from cellulose from plants), all premixed colors will tend to produce a completely different hue than you expect. This includes all greens, since there is no single-hue green dye in the Procion MX line. What will probably happen is that your green dye will produce a more olive or chartreuse shade on your silk. The results will not be good unless you don't really mind exactly what color you get.
Instead of using Procion MX dye, or another dye packaged for use on cotton, it would be better to use an acid dye. This class of dyes gets its name from the mild acid, such as vinegar, that provides the low pH required for the dye to bond to the fiber. As a general rule, acid dyes require heat to set and bond to the silk. Jacquard Products does provided a washing machine recipe for their acid dyes, to be used with hot tap water in a top-loading washing machine. Alternatively, you would need a very large, non-aluminum cooking pot to do your dyeing in, on top of the stove, but such pots are very expensive, and it is best to plan never to reuse a dyeing pot for food preparation. The need for a dyeing pot makes hot-water dyeing of clothing impractical.
A good source in Canada for dyes is G & S Dye, in Toronto, which sell dyes, including Jacquard Acid Dyes, by mail order. Their page on acid dyes includes instruction for both the washing machine method and the stovetop method for dyeing silk with acid dye. Do not use a front-loading washing machine with a recipe that has been worked out for top-loading washing machines.
A major risk of hand-dyeing, for a novice in particular, is that the color may not end up even. In order to get a smooth solid color, you must do a great deal of stirring, using a large volume of water, and following the manufacturer's recipe carefully. Garment-dyeing in a solid color is best done in a top-loading washing machine, because the automatic agitation helps considerably with avoiding unevenness. It is often possible to get a good solid color by hand-stirring, if you are careful enough, but there can be no guarantee. Sometimes there may be an uneven application of fabric finishing chemicals which will prevent completely smooth penetration of the fabric by the dye.
A possible alternative would be for you to send your dress to a professional dyer to redye for you. There are only a few companies that will do this sort of work, but I do know of one in Canada, Dye Pro Services Inc, in Calgary, Alberta. (See their listing on my page of "Where can I find someone to dye my clothing for me?".) Since they have professional dyeing equipment and a huge amount of experience, they are more likely to be able to produce the results that you want. This would be the best choice for a novice to change the color of a beautiful, expensive dress. The other best choice would be to return the dress where you bought it.
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Sunday, September 13, 2009
help neutralizing a hypochlorite bleach spill
Message: Hello,
We accidentally split a bucketful of dilute hypochorite bleach on our vinyl floor. It seeped under the vinyl and into the adjacent synthetic carpet, Our efforts to remove the contamination with copious amounts of water have proved inadequate because we all ( adults and kids) have burning feet and hands from bleach exposure. We think it has been spread to many hard surfaces in the home.
We write to ask your advice on how to neutralize the hypochlorite bleach on these various surfaces and return our home to a safe condition.
Your advice will be much appreciated.
Many thanks and kind regards, Kelly
I would recommend that you contact a poison control center right now. They have a lot of extremely useful information for problems like this, and you are certainly describing a case of contact poisoning. This telephone number will reach the National Poison Control Center from anywhere in the US: 1-800-222-1222. The information below is correct according to my best knowledge, but I think that it would be best for you to first contact the poison control experts and follow their advice.
Be careful not to use any strong acid, nor any cleaner that might contain ammonia, since both of these will generate deadly gases when they contact the spilled hypochlorite. The gases produced can cause serious injuries or death. Vinegar, a weak acid, is not a good choice for neutralizing hypochlorite.
My choice for neutralizing a household spill of hypochlorite bleach would be to use hydrogen peroxide, because it safely neutralizes the hypochlorite without releasing irritating sulfur compounds into the air.
Two other good choices for neutralizing hypochlorite, Anti-Chlor and Bleach Stop, both contain sulfur, which not only smells bad but can trigger breathing problems in people who have asthma, though I think that they are safer than the hypochlorite you're now dealing with. An MSDS for sodium thiosulfate (Bleach Stop) at JT Baker indicates that it can cause coughing and shortness of breath; an MSDS for sodium bisulfite warns that it can cause respiratory reactions, and it releases toxic sulfur dioxide gas.
Hydrogen peroxide does act as a bleach on some materials, in some cases removing color, but that's a minor consideration when what you need is to neutralize toxicity. You can buy it at your neighborhood pharmacy, where it is sold as an antiseptic. The 3% strength is certainly strong enough, probably stronger than you need. It sounds like you will need a great many bottles. It is dilute enough to be safe to use directly on your skin. The bubbles of gas that it produces are pure oxygen.
How much hydrogen peroxide will you really need? If your bucketful contained one cup (250 ml) of the usual 5% hypochlorite household bleach, that amounts to 12.5 grams of pure sodium hypochlorite, or about 0.17 moles (a unit referring to a number of molecules). Since one molecule of hydrogen peroxide is required to react with one molecule of sodium hypochlorite, that amount would require about 6 grams of pure hydrogen peroxide, which works out to 200 ml. If my figures are correct, then, you would need almost one cup of 3% hydrogen peroxide to neutralize each cup of 5% hypochlorite household bleach you started with, before diluting it. I am sure that you will want to err on the side of using too much, since it will be difficult to reach every bit of spilled bleach. You don't have to worry about the hydrogen peroxide persisting in the environment, as it tends to break down fairly quickly.
For additional information, see How can I neutralize the damaging effects of chlorine bleach?
I hope this information is helpful to you. Please let me know what happens.
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Tuesday, September 08, 2009
Washed my dry-clean-only pants: can I correct the fading?
Message: Hi.
I have a pair of pants that is 70%polyeser, 30%viscose. I did not see the label that says 'Do not machine wash, tumble dry. Dry Clean" so I threw it into my washing machine. Now after the wash, it is no longer black - it is dark blue. I need it to be black because it comes with a matching jacket - the current state makes the colour mismatch very obvious.
My question is will I be able to dye a pants of this material with your instructions?
Did washing damage the pants in any other way, other than by washing out the improperly-applied dye? Sometimes clothing marked "Dry Clean Only" will shrink out of shape when washed. If your pants look fine, aside from losing their color, then I suppose you can consider them washable now. Be careful not to wash them with anything lighter in color, since additional dye is likely to bleed out from the fabric. You cannot dye anything without a lot of washing, so there's no point in even considering dyeing something that is truly dry-clean-only.
Unfortunately, polyester is not practical to dye at home, and few if any commercial dyers are willing to consider custom-dyeing a polyester garment. Although cotton and viscose rayon are easy to dye in cool water, polyester requires boiling with a special kind of dye called disperse dye. Even if washing did not shrink your pants, boiling them seems likely to do so.
Your IP address (which was included when you sent your message) indicates that you are in Singapore. I'm afraid I don't know much about what types of dyes are available in Singapore. I can tell you where to mail-order disperse dyes for polyester from Australia, Europe, or North America, but I don't know where to recommend you obtain your dyes in Singapore. Do not try to dye polyester with any other sort of dyes, as disperse dyes are the only type that work. All-purpose dyes and batik dyes will not stay in the polyester.
Perhaps, if the jacket is unlined, the best move might be to wash the jacket, as well, hoping that it might fade in just the same way as your pants, so that the two pieces will match again. However, if the jacket is lined, this would be an unwise action to try. When a jacket is lined, the outer layer of the jacket will often shrink much more than the lining, resulting in an ill-fitting lining that ruins the shape of the garment. In addition, there is no guarantee that two separate pieces of clothing will react in the same way to either fading or dyeing. The two pieces may have matched perfectly when purchased, but may have come from different bolts of fabric which will react differently to washing or to dyeing.
I'm sorry that I cannot give you better news about how to fix your faded clothing.
Sunday, September 06, 2009
I have black shorts that are 65% polyester / 35% cotton that I would like to dye back to black
Message: Hi, I have black shorts that are 65% polyester / 35% cotton. The shorts are fading and I would like to dye them back to black or possibly even blacker than before. Also are there any products that can prevent fading after the dye?
I'm afraid it would cost a lot less to just buy a new pair of shorts. (If you buy a pair of 100% cotton shorts, you will be easily able to redye them if you ever want to.)
The problem is that polyester is not easy to dye. It requires a special polyester dye, because all-purpose and other cotton dyes will wash out. (See "Dyeing Polyester with Disperse Dyes".) Moreover, it requires a lot of heat to get this special dye into the polyester fiber. You can dye cotton will cool-water dyes, but polyester must be boiled with the dye for a while. This means that you need to invest in a very large cooking pot, large enough for your garment to move in freely as it boils with the dye, but you must not plan to reuse the pot for food. Dyes for polyester or cotton are not food-safe, and thus should not be used in cooking pots that you intend to reuse for food preparation.
You will not be able to buy polyester dyes in any local shops. The dyes that are locally available work only on natural fibers. You can mail-order disperse dyes from PRO Chemical & Dye in Massachusetts or Aljo Mfg. in New York. You can also mail-order Jacquard Products' low-energy disperse dye, iDye Poly, from a number of retailers, such as Blick Art Materials or Dharma Trading Company.
If you try to dye your shorts with an easy-to-use cotton dye, such as Procion fiber reactive dye, the 35% cotton in the shorts will pick up the dye nicely, but the dye will just wash out of the 65% polyester. That means that you can get a color that is only about 1/3 as dark as the maximum you could get with 100% cotton. This would be fine if you wanted a pale color such as pink, but it's no good at all when you want a deep dark black.
There are some effective commercial dye fixatives for use on negatively charged dyes, such as the direct dyes that are often used on cotton, or the acid dyes usually used on wool or nylon, but these fixatives do not work on uncharged dyes. Since the disperse dyes used to dye polyester do not carry a negative charge, there is no reason to expect these cationic dye fixatives to work on polyester dyes. They do work well on the dyes used in most commercial garments made of cotton, rayon, or nylon, however; see my page on "Commercial Dye Fixatives".
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Saturday, September 05, 2009
Where can I find a professional dyer to dye my wedding dress black?
Friday, September 04, 2009
What is the easiest way to tie-dye a pair of 100% polyester fleece pants?
The easiest way to tie-dye polyester is to use fabric paint, instead of dye. Two fabric paints that can be used for this are Dharma Pigment Dyes, which you can mail-order from Dharma Trading Company, and Jacquard Products' Dye-Na-Flow, which you can buy by mail-order or from some of the better crafts stores. Both of these fabric paints are described by their manufacturers as suitable for polyester. You can dilute the Dye-Na-Flow paint with up to 25% water; the Dharma Pigments can be diluted considerably more, with three to four times as much water as paint.
Another easy way to decorate 100% polyester is to make your own iron-on transfers, drawing or painting on paper with a special kind of polyester dye called disperse dye. Disperse dye crayons can be purchased at the local sewing store under the name Crayola Fabric Crayons. The colors look dull on paper, but are very bright once ironed on to paper. It's a little more difficult to paint your iron-ons, because you will have to mail-order the disperse dye to make them.
It is possible to do a true tie dye on polyester, but it's not at all easy. It requires not only that you mail-order the disperse dyes, but that you apply them according to the correct recipe, and then heat-set by steaming or in a pressure cooker.
You absolutely cannot do successful tie-dye on polyester using the same type of dyes you would use for cotton, because cotton dyes will just wash out of polyester. Using fabric paint or the special polyester dye solves that problem.
Also, I have a 100% fleece polyester blanket that is blue that I want to make green and brown. Is it possible?
Yes, you can use yellow or green disperse dye dye or fabric paint on a blue blanket blue in order to make green; use brown or rust to make it brown. Both dyes and fabric paints are transparent, so the original color will inevitably show through, but both green and brown are colors that can be made on top of blue.
For more information, see:
• Dyeing Polyester with Disperse Dyes
• Iron-on Fabric Crayons for Synthetic Fibers
• Fabric Paints: a different way to color fibers
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Thursday, September 03, 2009
painting portraits with dyes and fabric paints
Neopaque is an opaque fabric paint, so white will cover a dark or colored background.
Look for
Bonnie Lyn MacCaffery's
book,
Portrait Quilts: Painted Faces You Can Do
Message: Hi, I have been taking a course on Painting portraits. It is not good at all, the instructions are not clear and not enough brushing is always the reason why I get water marks between the first layer and the top layer. This is actually a characteristic of transparent paints, they show the bottom layer through the top layer making the skin tone/shades quite uneven. Even a opaque paint like Jacquards when water is added will make a more suitable shade for skin become authomaticaly transparent. So, I have been searching high and low for an solution of water marks on my portraits and if you know anything about it or can recommend a book or a site, please let me know. By the way, my portraits are on fabric, as I am a quilter, and I have been trying them with Jacquard's textiles. Would you know if changing paints is the answer?
I think the answer is to change the kind of class you are taking. It sounds as though your painting class is teaching you how to paint with opaque paints. Is it a class in oil painting, or painting with acrylics? If you want to paint with dyes or with transparent fabric paints, you will need to use an entirely different method of applying the paint. You should be taking a class in painting portraits with watercolor paints, instead. The methods of layering colors in watercolor are very different from those used for oil paints, and are far closer to those you would use for painting portraits with dyes on fabric.
There is an out-of-print book that you will want to look for from used book stores, Bonnie Lyn McCaffery's Portrait Quilts: Painted Faces You Can Do. It looks like exactly what you need. In addition, I have found a great many good books on painting with watercolors at the local public library, which while less specific for what you want to do, can be helpful. No book can substitute for a good class, but if you look at a book on painting pictures of people with watercolors, you will see that the techniques used are completely different. If you like watching videos, try searching YouTube for "watercolor portraits""; perhaps there's a good DVD that you could learn from. Until you are able to find a good class on how to do watercolor portraits, these will give you some ideas of the differences.
Instead of adding water to lighten your colors, with the techniques you are currently using, it would be better to use opaque white. That will avoid the problem of increasing transparency when trying to lighten colors. Jacquard Textile Colors does include an opaque white. If your local shop does not carry it, ask them to order it for you, or mail-order it yourself.
Jacquard Textile paints are opaque only if the label for each color specifies that it is. If you want to try a more opaque fabric paint, try Neopaque fabric paint. It is made by the same manufacturer, Jacquard Products, for greater opacity, and will work better in mimicking the techniques used in painting with oil paints or artists' acrylics. For areas where opacity is not important, you can use Neopaque with Jacquard Textile Colors, according to the manufacturer.
Don't forget to heat-set carefully after using Neopaque or Jacquard Textile Colors, if you plan to ever wash your creations. You can heat-set these fabric paints by pressing with a hot iron as instructed, or in a commercial machine dryer. Don't try to use a home dryer for this step, as they usually do not get hot enough to reliably set these paints.
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Wednesday, September 02, 2009
I want to redye some black Levis I like that fit well. Any advice?
Tuesday, September 01, 2009
What dye should I use for a wool/nylon blend?
a wide brush or tool to cover large areas of fabric with wax
Name:
Carla
Message: Hi Paula,
I just started working with batik. My designs are large scale abstracts which I am looking to wax onto a large piece of rayon fabric. So far I have been working with a small brush but as my designs get bigger, the small brush does not cover enough fabric. I was wondering if you know of a wide brush or tool which I can use to cover large areas of fabric with wax.
Go to the hardware store and buy a decent-quality natural-bristle brush in the painting department. Use this brush only for wax, not for paint or dye or anything else. There are several available widths. They are less expensive than fine artist's paintbrushes.
To keep the brush from slipping down into the wax pot, you can take a roll of masking tape and wrap many layers of tape around and around one point on the handle, creating an edge that will rest on the rim of the wax pot.
Do not try to clean the wax out of your brush when you are done applying wax, because you will never be able to use the brush for anything besides wax in the future. It won't hurt anything to leave some wax in the brush to harden. You can wrap it in aluminum foil for storage. When you go to use the brush for wax again, place the bristles into the wax pot for the wax on them to melt.
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Message: Hi Paula,
I just started working with batik. My designs are large scale abstracts which I am looking to wax onto a large piece of rayon fabric. So far I have been working with a small brush but as my designs get bigger, the small brush does not cover enough fabric. I was wondering if you know of a wide brush or tool which I can use to cover large areas of fabric with wax.
Go to the hardware store and buy a decent-quality natural-bristle brush in the painting department. Use this brush only for wax, not for paint or dye or anything else. There are several available widths. They are less expensive than fine artist's paintbrushes.
To keep the brush from slipping down into the wax pot, you can take a roll of masking tape and wrap many layers of tape around and around one point on the handle, creating an edge that will rest on the rim of the wax pot.
Do not try to clean the wax out of your brush when you are done applying wax, because you will never be able to use the brush for anything besides wax in the future. It won't hurt anything to leave some wax in the brush to harden. You can wrap it in aluminum foil for storage. When you go to use the brush for wax again, place the bristles into the wax pot for the wax on them to melt.
(Please help support this web site. Thank you.)
mixing colors for a medium gray on cotton yarn
Name: Su
Country or region: USA
Message: HI Paula.....I am commissioned to dye some yarn grey....the client wants a medium value grey and my inclination is to use a red and green combo to attain the desired color. I could also start with black and use a diluted dyestock to attain the color, but am wondering which method, if either, is more likely to yield satisfactory results. I am quite familiar with color theory and dyeing in general, but have never before been called upon to dye a medium value grey. I was wondering if you have any suggestions or advice to offer? Any suggestions appreciated.....and thanks in advance.
Hi Su,
You'll want to prepare to do a bit of trial and error. In many cases the results of a formula for a neutral color will not come out quite neutral, because chances are that one dye will be a little stronger or a little weaker than expected.
Since you're working with Procion MX dyes on cotton, what I would recommend would be to start with the dullest, darkest colors, some navy blue MX-3R or blue MX-2G mixed with some brown MX-GRN, which is a terracotta brown. (See "Which Procion MX colors are pure, and which mixtures?".) If you start with the duller unmixed dye colors, you will not need to use as much dye as you will if you start with clear bright colors such as fuchsia or turquoise. As you know, however, you can use any red, blue, and yellow to start with, if you keep adding the opposite of whatever color you have so far obtained with a mixture (red to green, orange to blue, or yellow to purple). It's not as important to start with a dull dark primary if you're aiming at a medium gray instead of a dark black; you're less likely to have problems with using enough dye to get it dark enough.
This is an ideal situation for a prepackaged color mix, if you're willing to wait for an order to be delivered. In some cases, it makes sense to let ProChem or Dharma do the work of balancing the different colors in the mixture. Of course, it's not impossible that your water or fiber (or, visually, the color of other items seen next to the yarn after dyeing) might slightly affect the balance of the color, so you still might end up having to balance the color.
In terms of published formulae, Jacquard Products recommends using a dilution of their Jet Black mixture. Note that this is not the same as the Jet Black sold by other suppliers, though they might work just as well. In many cases a mixture that produces a nice black when used at a high concentration will not be quite balanced when diluted. Maiwa suggests using 50% of a navy mixture along with 50% of their black mixture to get a steel gray. That's all of the formulas I have handy for mixing a gray from Procion MX dyes.
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Country or region: USA
—ADVERTISEMENTS—
Message: HI Paula.....I am commissioned to dye some yarn grey....the client wants a medium value grey and my inclination is to use a red and green combo to attain the desired color. I could also start with black and use a diluted dyestock to attain the color, but am wondering which method, if either, is more likely to yield satisfactory results. I am quite familiar with color theory and dyeing in general, but have never before been called upon to dye a medium value grey. I was wondering if you have any suggestions or advice to offer? Any suggestions appreciated.....and thanks in advance.
Hi Su,
You'll want to prepare to do a bit of trial and error. In many cases the results of a formula for a neutral color will not come out quite neutral, because chances are that one dye will be a little stronger or a little weaker than expected.
Since you're working with Procion MX dyes on cotton, what I would recommend would be to start with the dullest, darkest colors, some navy blue MX-3R or blue MX-2G mixed with some brown MX-GRN, which is a terracotta brown. (See "Which Procion MX colors are pure, and which mixtures?".) If you start with the duller unmixed dye colors, you will not need to use as much dye as you will if you start with clear bright colors such as fuchsia or turquoise. As you know, however, you can use any red, blue, and yellow to start with, if you keep adding the opposite of whatever color you have so far obtained with a mixture (red to green, orange to blue, or yellow to purple). It's not as important to start with a dull dark primary if you're aiming at a medium gray instead of a dark black; you're less likely to have problems with using enough dye to get it dark enough.
This is an ideal situation for a prepackaged color mix, if you're willing to wait for an order to be delivered. In some cases, it makes sense to let ProChem or Dharma do the work of balancing the different colors in the mixture. Of course, it's not impossible that your water or fiber (or, visually, the color of other items seen next to the yarn after dyeing) might slightly affect the balance of the color, so you still might end up having to balance the color.
In terms of published formulae, Jacquard Products recommends using a dilution of their Jet Black mixture. Note that this is not the same as the Jet Black sold by other suppliers, though they might work just as well. In many cases a mixture that produces a nice black when used at a high concentration will not be quite balanced when diluted. Maiwa suggests using 50% of a navy mixture along with 50% of their black mixture to get a steel gray. That's all of the formulas I have handy for mixing a gray from Procion MX dyes.
(Please help support this web site. Thank you.)
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Baby bottle disinfectant as a dye discharge
Name: Jo
Country: UK
Message: Dear Paula
Rit Color Remover Removes Dyes
The information that you have on your website regarding chemicals that can be used to remove dye and neutralize the damaging effects of chlorine bleach is very interesting and informative and I wondered if you could help me?
As a textile designer I regularly use thiox and formasol to discharge cloth but I would like to find a safer alternative, although I do always wear gloves and a proper mask.
I wondered if you had ever come across the product Milton Sterilising Fluid? It is an aqueous solution of 2% sodium hypochlorite and 16.5% sodium chloride used to sterilise baby feed equipment. According to their website www.milton-tm.com it is 'harmless and leaves no unpleasant taste or odour. When in contact with protein, Milton breaks down to WATER and minute traces of salt. It is therefore totally safe and can be applied directly to the skin - even swallowed - without harm.'
I have done some preliminary tested on fabric and undiluted it bleaches commercially dyed fabric almost instantly and even when diluted still bleaches the fabric quickly.
I have contacted Milton and asked them to send me the material data safety sheet for the product which they have done and I am happy to send to you if you are interested but I wondered if you knew if it was ok to use and if so, if it is ok to neutralize with Anti-Chlor?
I look forward to hearing from you.
I don't see any reason why you should not use Milton Sterilising Fluid as a dye discharge agent, but I don't believe that it will necessarily be any safer for you to use than thiox or formosul.
Sodium hypochlorite is a common and somewhat dangerous household chemical. It is exactly the same thing that is in household bleach. Commonly, household bleach contains 5.25% or 6% sodium hypochlorite by weight. Milton Sterilising Fluid does not appear to be anything special; the addition of the sodium chloride is irrelevant. Your Milton Sterilising Fluid is essentially the same thing as a 1:3 dilution of common household bleach. It is not appreciably safer than household bleach, and I suspect that it is not any safer than the chemicals you have already been using. It is a reasonable choice for dye discharge, but it does not represent a major safety improvement as compared to the other chemicals.
Whether you use thiox, formosul, or hypochlorite, you must be careful to protect yourself from damaging fumes. An electric fan set in a nearby wide-open window helps to provide ventilation, but you should also use a respirator. The same type of respirator is recommended for all three of these, a cartridge respirator fitted with an acid gas/ammonia/formaldehyde cartridge.
If you use Milton Sterilising Fluid as a dye discharge agent, you should neutralize it afterwards just as you would other brands of hypochlorite bleach. Anti-chlor, Bleach Stop, and 3% hydrogen peroxide are all effective for this purpose; hydrogen peroxide is the safest choice for asthmatics who are senstitive to sulfites. Be sure to rinse out the bleach with water first, before neutralizing your fabric. In contrast, thiox and formosul are neutralized by the oxygen in the air, so there is no need for a separate neutralizing step when you use them as discharge agents.
In spite of the claims you saw, it would be highly unwise to swallow undiluted Milton Sterilising Fluid. Perhaps they don't mean that it is safe to swallow the undiluted fluid, but instead the diluted solution, which contains 30 ml per 5 liters of water; this is over a hundred-fold dilution, resulting in a 0.012% solution, which would be safe, though not very pleasant to taste. For more safety information, a good source would be the JT Baker MSDS for sodium hypochlorite.
The only way in which sodium hypochlorite may be less hazardous than the thiox (thiourea dioxide) and formosul (sodium formaldehyde sulfoxylate) would be if you are sensitive to the sulfur compounds, which for some people can trigger an asthma attack if they are exposed to even minute quantities. The problem with the sulfur-containing discharge agents is that they produce sulfur dioxide, which is toxic and dangerous, if used incorrectly and without safety equipment, but sodium hypochlorite is also toxic and dangerous, if used incorrectly and without safety equipment. Each of these products should be safe for you to use for dye discharge if you are careful to take the appropriate precautions.
For more information, see my page on "What chemicals can be used to remove dye?".
(Please help support this web site. Thank you.)
Country: UK
Message: Dear Paula
—ADVERTISEMENT—
Dye Removal ChemicalsRit Color Remover Removes Dyes
The information that you have on your website regarding chemicals that can be used to remove dye and neutralize the damaging effects of chlorine bleach is very interesting and informative and I wondered if you could help me?
As a textile designer I regularly use thiox and formasol to discharge cloth but I would like to find a safer alternative, although I do always wear gloves and a proper mask.
I wondered if you had ever come across the product Milton Sterilising Fluid? It is an aqueous solution of 2% sodium hypochlorite and 16.5% sodium chloride used to sterilise baby feed equipment. According to their website www.milton-tm.com it is 'harmless and leaves no unpleasant taste or odour. When in contact with protein, Milton breaks down to WATER and minute traces of salt. It is therefore totally safe and can be applied directly to the skin - even swallowed - without harm.'
I have done some preliminary tested on fabric and undiluted it bleaches commercially dyed fabric almost instantly and even when diluted still bleaches the fabric quickly.
I have contacted Milton and asked them to send me the material data safety sheet for the product which they have done and I am happy to send to you if you are interested but I wondered if you knew if it was ok to use and if so, if it is ok to neutralize with Anti-Chlor?
I look forward to hearing from you.
I don't see any reason why you should not use Milton Sterilising Fluid as a dye discharge agent, but I don't believe that it will necessarily be any safer for you to use than thiox or formosul.
Sodium hypochlorite is a common and somewhat dangerous household chemical. It is exactly the same thing that is in household bleach. Commonly, household bleach contains 5.25% or 6% sodium hypochlorite by weight. Milton Sterilising Fluid does not appear to be anything special; the addition of the sodium chloride is irrelevant. Your Milton Sterilising Fluid is essentially the same thing as a 1:3 dilution of common household bleach. It is not appreciably safer than household bleach, and I suspect that it is not any safer than the chemicals you have already been using. It is a reasonable choice for dye discharge, but it does not represent a major safety improvement as compared to the other chemicals.
Whether you use thiox, formosul, or hypochlorite, you must be careful to protect yourself from damaging fumes. An electric fan set in a nearby wide-open window helps to provide ventilation, but you should also use a respirator. The same type of respirator is recommended for all three of these, a cartridge respirator fitted with an acid gas/ammonia/formaldehyde cartridge.
If you use Milton Sterilising Fluid as a dye discharge agent, you should neutralize it afterwards just as you would other brands of hypochlorite bleach. Anti-chlor, Bleach Stop, and 3% hydrogen peroxide are all effective for this purpose; hydrogen peroxide is the safest choice for asthmatics who are senstitive to sulfites. Be sure to rinse out the bleach with water first, before neutralizing your fabric. In contrast, thiox and formosul are neutralized by the oxygen in the air, so there is no need for a separate neutralizing step when you use them as discharge agents.
In spite of the claims you saw, it would be highly unwise to swallow undiluted Milton Sterilising Fluid. Perhaps they don't mean that it is safe to swallow the undiluted fluid, but instead the diluted solution, which contains 30 ml per 5 liters of water; this is over a hundred-fold dilution, resulting in a 0.012% solution, which would be safe, though not very pleasant to taste. For more safety information, a good source would be the JT Baker MSDS for sodium hypochlorite.
The only way in which sodium hypochlorite may be less hazardous than the thiox (thiourea dioxide) and formosul (sodium formaldehyde sulfoxylate) would be if you are sensitive to the sulfur compounds, which for some people can trigger an asthma attack if they are exposed to even minute quantities. The problem with the sulfur-containing discharge agents is that they produce sulfur dioxide, which is toxic and dangerous, if used incorrectly and without safety equipment, but sodium hypochlorite is also toxic and dangerous, if used incorrectly and without safety equipment. Each of these products should be safe for you to use for dye discharge if you are careful to take the appropriate precautions.
For more information, see my page on "What chemicals can be used to remove dye?".
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Monday, September 14, 2009
Redyeing a new floor-length silk chiffon gown
Name: NM
Country: Canada
Country: Canada
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at Paradise Fibers
Washfast Acid dyes
Also known as Nylomine dyes, excellent for use on silk, wool, and nylon. One ounce of dye will dye six pounds of fiber!
Message: I'm a complete novice to dyeing and found your site to be an exceptionally valuable resource. I looked through the FAQ section and did not see anything that I could identify with what I am looking for, so I hope you won't mind my question?
I just bought a floor-length silk chiffon Grecian/Goddess gown from BCBG (over the internet) in the colour they called "glade." When I received the gown, I found to my disapointment that the colour was quite a bit lighter than the picture on the web and was closest to the colour swatch for Procion MX dye called Avocado.
I want to dye it the same colour but a quite a few shades deeper. The colour I want is not found in Procion MX; it seems to fall between their Forest and Olive Greens, but a couple of shades darker than either.
How do I go about tub-dyeing this gown a very deep warm green without a hint of blue, but yet not too brown?
I do not have any swatches of this material to experiment with, and would hate to ruin this gorgeous and expensive item due to my inexperience.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
I'm afraid I can't really recommend that you try to dye anything that you can't bear to ruin. Sometimes one panel of a commercial garment, although identical in color before you dye it, will be darker or lighter than the rest after you dye it, due to its having been cut from a different bolt of fabric with slightly different affinity for the dye.
If you do dye this dress, I recommend against using Procion MX dyes. Although Procion MX dyes work extremely well on silk, the colors on the swatches you looked at were derived from testing on cotton fabric. Since silk is composed of an entirely different material than cotton (silk is made of a protein from insects, while cotton is made from cellulose from plants), all premixed colors will tend to produce a completely different hue than you expect. This includes all greens, since there is no single-hue green dye in the Procion MX line. What will probably happen is that your green dye will produce a more olive or chartreuse shade on your silk. The results will not be good unless you don't really mind exactly what color you get.
Instead of using Procion MX dye, or another dye packaged for use on cotton, it would be better to use an acid dye. This class of dyes gets its name from the mild acid, such as vinegar, that provides the low pH required for the dye to bond to the fiber. As a general rule, acid dyes require heat to set and bond to the silk. Jacquard Products does provided a washing machine recipe for their acid dyes, to be used with hot tap water in a top-loading washing machine. Alternatively, you would need a very large, non-aluminum cooking pot to do your dyeing in, on top of the stove, but such pots are very expensive, and it is best to plan never to reuse a dyeing pot for food preparation. The need for a dyeing pot makes hot-water dyeing of clothing impractical.
A good source in Canada for dyes is G & S Dye, in Toronto, which sell dyes, including Jacquard Acid Dyes, by mail order. Their page on acid dyes includes instruction for both the washing machine method and the stovetop method for dyeing silk with acid dye. Do not use a front-loading washing machine with a recipe that has been worked out for top-loading washing machines.
A major risk of hand-dyeing, for a novice in particular, is that the color may not end up even. In order to get a smooth solid color, you must do a great deal of stirring, using a large volume of water, and following the manufacturer's recipe carefully. Garment-dyeing in a solid color is best done in a top-loading washing machine, because the automatic agitation helps considerably with avoiding unevenness. It is often possible to get a good solid color by hand-stirring, if you are careful enough, but there can be no guarantee. Sometimes there may be an uneven application of fabric finishing chemicals which will prevent completely smooth penetration of the fabric by the dye.
A possible alternative would be for you to send your dress to a professional dyer to redye for you. There are only a few companies that will do this sort of work, but I do know of one in Canada, Dye Pro Services Inc, in Calgary, Alberta. (See their listing on my page of "Where can I find someone to dye my clothing for me?".) Since they have professional dyeing equipment and a huge amount of experience, they are more likely to be able to produce the results that you want. This would be the best choice for a novice to change the color of a beautiful, expensive dress. The other best choice would be to return the dress where you bought it.
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Sunday, September 13, 2009
help neutralizing a hypochlorite bleach spill
Name: kelly
Country: USA
Country: USA
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Message: Hello,
We accidentally split a bucketful of dilute hypochorite bleach on our vinyl floor. It seeped under the vinyl and into the adjacent synthetic carpet, Our efforts to remove the contamination with copious amounts of water have proved inadequate because we all ( adults and kids) have burning feet and hands from bleach exposure. We think it has been spread to many hard surfaces in the home.
We write to ask your advice on how to neutralize the hypochlorite bleach on these various surfaces and return our home to a safe condition.
Your advice will be much appreciated.
Many thanks and kind regards, Kelly
I would recommend that you contact a poison control center right now. They have a lot of extremely useful information for problems like this, and you are certainly describing a case of contact poisoning. This telephone number will reach the National Poison Control Center from anywhere in the US: 1-800-222-1222. The information below is correct according to my best knowledge, but I think that it would be best for you to first contact the poison control experts and follow their advice.
Be careful not to use any strong acid, nor any cleaner that might contain ammonia, since both of these will generate deadly gases when they contact the spilled hypochlorite. The gases produced can cause serious injuries or death. Vinegar, a weak acid, is not a good choice for neutralizing hypochlorite.
My choice for neutralizing a household spill of hypochlorite bleach would be to use hydrogen peroxide, because it safely neutralizes the hypochlorite without releasing irritating sulfur compounds into the air.
Two other good choices for neutralizing hypochlorite, Anti-Chlor and Bleach Stop, both contain sulfur, which not only smells bad but can trigger breathing problems in people who have asthma, though I think that they are safer than the hypochlorite you're now dealing with. An MSDS for sodium thiosulfate (Bleach Stop) at JT Baker indicates that it can cause coughing and shortness of breath; an MSDS for sodium bisulfite warns that it can cause respiratory reactions, and it releases toxic sulfur dioxide gas.
Hydrogen peroxide does act as a bleach on some materials, in some cases removing color, but that's a minor consideration when what you need is to neutralize toxicity. You can buy it at your neighborhood pharmacy, where it is sold as an antiseptic. The 3% strength is certainly strong enough, probably stronger than you need. It sounds like you will need a great many bottles. It is dilute enough to be safe to use directly on your skin. The bubbles of gas that it produces are pure oxygen.
How much hydrogen peroxide will you really need? If your bucketful contained one cup (250 ml) of the usual 5% hypochlorite household bleach, that amounts to 12.5 grams of pure sodium hypochlorite, or about 0.17 moles (a unit referring to a number of molecules). Since one molecule of hydrogen peroxide is required to react with one molecule of sodium hypochlorite, that amount would require about 6 grams of pure hydrogen peroxide, which works out to 200 ml. If my figures are correct, then, you would need almost one cup of 3% hydrogen peroxide to neutralize each cup of 5% hypochlorite household bleach you started with, before diluting it. I am sure that you will want to err on the side of using too much, since it will be difficult to reach every bit of spilled bleach. You don't have to worry about the hydrogen peroxide persisting in the environment, as it tends to break down fairly quickly.
For additional information, see How can I neutralize the damaging effects of chlorine bleach?
I hope this information is helpful to you. Please let me know what happens.
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Tuesday, September 08, 2009
Washed my dry-clean-only pants: can I correct the fading?
Name: Baine
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Dye polyester and poly/cotton blends
Message: Hi.
I have a pair of pants that is 70%polyeser, 30%viscose. I did not see the label that says 'Do not machine wash, tumble dry. Dry Clean" so I threw it into my washing machine. Now after the wash, it is no longer black - it is dark blue. I need it to be black because it comes with a matching jacket - the current state makes the colour mismatch very obvious.
My question is will I be able to dye a pants of this material with your instructions?
Did washing damage the pants in any other way, other than by washing out the improperly-applied dye? Sometimes clothing marked "Dry Clean Only" will shrink out of shape when washed. If your pants look fine, aside from losing their color, then I suppose you can consider them washable now. Be careful not to wash them with anything lighter in color, since additional dye is likely to bleed out from the fabric. You cannot dye anything without a lot of washing, so there's no point in even considering dyeing something that is truly dry-clean-only.
Unfortunately, polyester is not practical to dye at home, and few if any commercial dyers are willing to consider custom-dyeing a polyester garment. Although cotton and viscose rayon are easy to dye in cool water, polyester requires boiling with a special kind of dye called disperse dye. Even if washing did not shrink your pants, boiling them seems likely to do so.
Your IP address (which was included when you sent your message) indicates that you are in Singapore. I'm afraid I don't know much about what types of dyes are available in Singapore. I can tell you where to mail-order disperse dyes for polyester from Australia, Europe, or North America, but I don't know where to recommend you obtain your dyes in Singapore. Do not try to dye polyester with any other sort of dyes, as disperse dyes are the only type that work. All-purpose dyes and batik dyes will not stay in the polyester.
Perhaps, if the jacket is unlined, the best move might be to wash the jacket, as well, hoping that it might fade in just the same way as your pants, so that the two pieces will match again. However, if the jacket is lined, this would be an unwise action to try. When a jacket is lined, the outer layer of the jacket will often shrink much more than the lining, resulting in an ill-fitting lining that ruins the shape of the garment. In addition, there is no guarantee that two separate pieces of clothing will react in the same way to either fading or dyeing. The two pieces may have matched perfectly when purchased, but may have come from different bolts of fabric which will react differently to washing or to dyeing.
I'm sorry that I cannot give you better news about how to fix your faded clothing.
Sunday, September 06, 2009
I have black shorts that are 65% polyester / 35% cotton that I would like to dye back to black
Name: Tri
Country: United States, Orange County
Country: United States, Orange County
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Dye polyester and poly/cotton blends
Message: Hi, I have black shorts that are 65% polyester / 35% cotton. The shorts are fading and I would like to dye them back to black or possibly even blacker than before. Also are there any products that can prevent fading after the dye?
I'm afraid it would cost a lot less to just buy a new pair of shorts. (If you buy a pair of 100% cotton shorts, you will be easily able to redye them if you ever want to.)
The problem is that polyester is not easy to dye. It requires a special polyester dye, because all-purpose and other cotton dyes will wash out. (See "Dyeing Polyester with Disperse Dyes".) Moreover, it requires a lot of heat to get this special dye into the polyester fiber. You can dye cotton will cool-water dyes, but polyester must be boiled with the dye for a while. This means that you need to invest in a very large cooking pot, large enough for your garment to move in freely as it boils with the dye, but you must not plan to reuse the pot for food. Dyes for polyester or cotton are not food-safe, and thus should not be used in cooking pots that you intend to reuse for food preparation.
You will not be able to buy polyester dyes in any local shops. The dyes that are locally available work only on natural fibers. You can mail-order disperse dyes from PRO Chemical & Dye in Massachusetts or Aljo Mfg. in New York. You can also mail-order Jacquard Products' low-energy disperse dye, iDye Poly, from a number of retailers, such as Blick Art Materials or Dharma Trading Company.
If you try to dye your shorts with an easy-to-use cotton dye, such as Procion fiber reactive dye, the 35% cotton in the shorts will pick up the dye nicely, but the dye will just wash out of the 65% polyester. That means that you can get a color that is only about 1/3 as dark as the maximum you could get with 100% cotton. This would be fine if you wanted a pale color such as pink, but it's no good at all when you want a deep dark black.
There are some effective commercial dye fixatives for use on negatively charged dyes, such as the direct dyes that are often used on cotton, or the acid dyes usually used on wool or nylon, but these fixatives do not work on uncharged dyes. Since the disperse dyes used to dye polyester do not carry a negative charge, there is no reason to expect these cationic dye fixatives to work on polyester dyes. They do work well on the dyes used in most commercial garments made of cotton, rayon, or nylon, however; see my page on "Commercial Dye Fixatives".
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Saturday, September 05, 2009
Where can I find a professional dyer to dye my wedding dress black?
Name: Lorraine
Country or region: London, England
Message: Hi There
I've been trawling the internet for somewhere to professionally dye my wedding dress. It's short, and I want to dye it black so I can use all my coloured accessories again.
Could you recommend anywhere that could do it for me?
Unfortunately, no company in the UK has registered on my list of custom dyers (see "Where can I find someone to dye my clothing for me?"), so I cannot recommend a dyer for you.
In the US, I would recommend the Manhattan Dyeing Service, which is listed on that page, as they are the only firm I know that is willing to dye anything that is made of polyester. Polyester is difficult to dye, so custom dyers do not generally want to bother with it.
If your dress is made of a natural fiber such as silk or viscose rayon, it will be much easier to find a dyer for it than if it is made of polyester or acetate. (Note that satin in a wedding dress is usually polyester, but, if you're very lucky, may be silk.) However, the stitching at the seams is probably made of polyester thread, which will stay the original color.
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Country or region: London, England
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Message: Hi There
I've been trawling the internet for somewhere to professionally dye my wedding dress. It's short, and I want to dye it black so I can use all my coloured accessories again.
Could you recommend anywhere that could do it for me?
Unfortunately, no company in the UK has registered on my list of custom dyers (see "Where can I find someone to dye my clothing for me?"), so I cannot recommend a dyer for you.
In the US, I would recommend the Manhattan Dyeing Service, which is listed on that page, as they are the only firm I know that is willing to dye anything that is made of polyester. Polyester is difficult to dye, so custom dyers do not generally want to bother with it.
If your dress is made of a natural fiber such as silk or viscose rayon, it will be much easier to find a dyer for it than if it is made of polyester or acetate. (Note that satin in a wedding dress is usually polyester, but, if you're very lucky, may be silk.) However, the stitching at the seams is probably made of polyester thread, which will stay the original color.
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Friday, September 04, 2009
What is the easiest way to tie-dye a pair of 100% polyester fleece pants?
Name: Willie
Message: What is the easiest way to tie-dye a pair of 100% polyester fleece pants?
Message: What is the easiest way to tie-dye a pair of 100% polyester fleece pants?
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The easiest way to tie-dye polyester is to use fabric paint, instead of dye. Two fabric paints that can be used for this are Dharma Pigment Dyes, which you can mail-order from Dharma Trading Company, and Jacquard Products' Dye-Na-Flow, which you can buy by mail-order or from some of the better crafts stores. Both of these fabric paints are described by their manufacturers as suitable for polyester. You can dilute the Dye-Na-Flow paint with up to 25% water; the Dharma Pigments can be diluted considerably more, with three to four times as much water as paint.
Another easy way to decorate 100% polyester is to make your own iron-on transfers, drawing or painting on paper with a special kind of polyester dye called disperse dye. Disperse dye crayons can be purchased at the local sewing store under the name Crayola Fabric Crayons. The colors look dull on paper, but are very bright once ironed on to paper. It's a little more difficult to paint your iron-ons, because you will have to mail-order the disperse dye to make them.
It is possible to do a true tie dye on polyester, but it's not at all easy. It requires not only that you mail-order the disperse dyes, but that you apply them according to the correct recipe, and then heat-set by steaming or in a pressure cooker.
You absolutely cannot do successful tie-dye on polyester using the same type of dyes you would use for cotton, because cotton dyes will just wash out of polyester. Using fabric paint or the special polyester dye solves that problem.
Also, I have a 100% fleece polyester blanket that is blue that I want to make green and brown. Is it possible?
Yes, you can use yellow or green disperse dye dye or fabric paint on a blue blanket blue in order to make green; use brown or rust to make it brown. Both dyes and fabric paints are transparent, so the original color will inevitably show through, but both green and brown are colors that can be made on top of blue.
For more information, see:
• Dyeing Polyester with Disperse Dyes
• Iron-on Fabric Crayons for Synthetic Fibers
• Fabric Paints: a different way to color fibers
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Thursday, September 03, 2009
painting portraits with dyes and fabric paints
Name: Valeri
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Look for
Bonnie Lyn MacCaffery's
book,
Portrait Quilts: Painted Faces You Can Do
Message: Hi, I have been taking a course on Painting portraits. It is not good at all, the instructions are not clear and not enough brushing is always the reason why I get water marks between the first layer and the top layer. This is actually a characteristic of transparent paints, they show the bottom layer through the top layer making the skin tone/shades quite uneven. Even a opaque paint like Jacquards when water is added will make a more suitable shade for skin become authomaticaly transparent. So, I have been searching high and low for an solution of water marks on my portraits and if you know anything about it or can recommend a book or a site, please let me know. By the way, my portraits are on fabric, as I am a quilter, and I have been trying them with Jacquard's textiles. Would you know if changing paints is the answer?
I think the answer is to change the kind of class you are taking. It sounds as though your painting class is teaching you how to paint with opaque paints. Is it a class in oil painting, or painting with acrylics? If you want to paint with dyes or with transparent fabric paints, you will need to use an entirely different method of applying the paint. You should be taking a class in painting portraits with watercolor paints, instead. The methods of layering colors in watercolor are very different from those used for oil paints, and are far closer to those you would use for painting portraits with dyes on fabric.
There is an out-of-print book that you will want to look for from used book stores, Bonnie Lyn McCaffery's Portrait Quilts: Painted Faces You Can Do. It looks like exactly what you need. In addition, I have found a great many good books on painting with watercolors at the local public library, which while less specific for what you want to do, can be helpful. No book can substitute for a good class, but if you look at a book on painting pictures of people with watercolors, you will see that the techniques used are completely different. If you like watching videos, try searching YouTube for "watercolor portraits""; perhaps there's a good DVD that you could learn from. Until you are able to find a good class on how to do watercolor portraits, these will give you some ideas of the differences.
Instead of adding water to lighten your colors, with the techniques you are currently using, it would be better to use opaque white. That will avoid the problem of increasing transparency when trying to lighten colors. Jacquard Textile Colors does include an opaque white. If your local shop does not carry it, ask them to order it for you, or mail-order it yourself.
Jacquard Textile paints are opaque only if the label for each color specifies that it is. If you want to try a more opaque fabric paint, try Neopaque fabric paint. It is made by the same manufacturer, Jacquard Products, for greater opacity, and will work better in mimicking the techniques used in painting with oil paints or artists' acrylics. For areas where opacity is not important, you can use Neopaque with Jacquard Textile Colors, according to the manufacturer.
Don't forget to heat-set carefully after using Neopaque or Jacquard Textile Colors, if you plan to ever wash your creations. You can heat-set these fabric paints by pressing with a hot iron as instructed, or in a commercial machine dryer. Don't try to use a home dryer for this step, as they usually do not get hot enough to reliably set these paints.
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Wednesday, September 02, 2009
I want to redye some black Levis I like that fit well. Any advice?
Name: Joe C
Message: I want to redye some black levi's I like that fit well. Any advice?
Mail-order an eight-ounce jar of black Procion MX dye and dye them in a top-loading washing machine. You can dye five to eight pounds of jeans at once, depending on the volume of your washing machine. You will also need sodium carbonate (soda ash or washing soda), and a large quantity of salt. See "How can I dye clothing or fabric in the washing machine?". For mail-order sources of Procion dye, see "Sources for Dyeing Supplies Around the World".
Alternatively, you can apply the Procion MX dye to one pair of jeans at a time, in a five-gallon bucket, using essentially the same recipe, or you can buy some buy some Dylon Permanent Fabric Dye, instead. Dylon dye is much more expensive per pound of fabric (or per garment), and the available colors are much more limited, but the dye is a good fiber reactive dye, like Procion MX dye. Dyeing anything black requires a great deal more dye than dyeing things brighter or paler colors, in some cases ten times as much, depending on the color to which you're comparing. You will need several packets of Dylon dye for each pair of jeans; one 50-gram packet of Dylon Permanent Fabric Dye is enough to color one-quarter pound of fabric black, or half a pound to a lighter color. Weigh the garments you wish to dye. If your jeans weigh two pounds per pair, you'll need eight packets of Dylon Permanent Fabric Dye, or three ounces of Procion MX black dye. If they're still pretty black from their original color, you can get by with half as much as that.
I strongly recommend against the use of all-purpose dye, such as Rit or Tintex brand dyes. All-purpose dye fades quickly, and garments dyed with it must be hand-washed separately. Garments dyed with Procion MX or Dylon Permanent will stay intensely colored for years longer, in spite of frequent washing, and, after the first few washings to rid them of excess unattached dye, are safe to throw into the laundry with the rest of your clothing.
If you are in Europe or Australia, you can use Dylon Machine Dye in a front-loading washing machine. This dye is similar in quality (and cost and color range) to Dylon Permanent Fabric Dye, and is very easy to use. Dylon Machine Dye is not available in North America. Procion MX dye is just as good, though, and costs considerably less.
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Message: I want to redye some black levi's I like that fit well. Any advice?
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Mail-order an eight-ounce jar of black Procion MX dye and dye them in a top-loading washing machine. You can dye five to eight pounds of jeans at once, depending on the volume of your washing machine. You will also need sodium carbonate (soda ash or washing soda), and a large quantity of salt. See "How can I dye clothing or fabric in the washing machine?". For mail-order sources of Procion dye, see "Sources for Dyeing Supplies Around the World".
Alternatively, you can apply the Procion MX dye to one pair of jeans at a time, in a five-gallon bucket, using essentially the same recipe, or you can buy some buy some Dylon Permanent Fabric Dye, instead. Dylon dye is much more expensive per pound of fabric (or per garment), and the available colors are much more limited, but the dye is a good fiber reactive dye, like Procion MX dye. Dyeing anything black requires a great deal more dye than dyeing things brighter or paler colors, in some cases ten times as much, depending on the color to which you're comparing. You will need several packets of Dylon dye for each pair of jeans; one 50-gram packet of Dylon Permanent Fabric Dye is enough to color one-quarter pound of fabric black, or half a pound to a lighter color. Weigh the garments you wish to dye. If your jeans weigh two pounds per pair, you'll need eight packets of Dylon Permanent Fabric Dye, or three ounces of Procion MX black dye. If they're still pretty black from their original color, you can get by with half as much as that.
I strongly recommend against the use of all-purpose dye, such as Rit or Tintex brand dyes. All-purpose dye fades quickly, and garments dyed with it must be hand-washed separately. Garments dyed with Procion MX or Dylon Permanent will stay intensely colored for years longer, in spite of frequent washing, and, after the first few washings to rid them of excess unattached dye, are safe to throw into the laundry with the rest of your clothing.
If you are in Europe or Australia, you can use Dylon Machine Dye in a front-loading washing machine. This dye is similar in quality (and cost and color range) to Dylon Permanent Fabric Dye, and is very easy to use. Dylon Machine Dye is not available in North America. Procion MX dye is just as good, though, and costs considerably less.
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Tuesday, September 01, 2009
What dye should I use for a wool/nylon blend?
Name: Suzanne
Message: I am wanting to dye a baby jacket knitted in a 70% wool/30% nylon yarn. The manufacturer could not recommend a dye for a mixed blend. I am hoping you will be able to help. Many thanks, in anticipatiion.
(For silk, wool, angora, mohair & nylon)
Lanaset 4 Color Dye Sampler
$13.25
Everything you need to get started dyeing silk or wool with Lanaset dyes: four colors (Sun Yellow, Scarlet, Royal Blue, and Jet Black), plus citric acid, sodium acetate, Glauber salt, Albegal SET, and Synthrapol.
Buy from
Paradise Fibers
As a general rule, the dyes that work on wool will also work on nylon, though it might take the dye a little more or less intensely. Although nylon is a synthetic fiber, it chemically resembles wool and other proteins. The dyes used on wool and nylon are called acid dyes, because they are used with a mild acid such as vinegar.
Since baby clothes must be washed a great deal, I strongly recommend that you use high washfastness as your priority in choosing a dye. Most acid dyes will tend to wash out in hot water. The most wash-resistant of dyes for wool are the Lanaset or Lanasol dye series. They are so wash-resistant that their washfastness is rated for the results of washing garments dyed with it in 140°F hot water, instead of 105°F lukewarm water as is used for testing the washfastness of other kinds of acid dyes.
See "Lanaset Dyes: A Range of Reactive and Acid Dyes for Protein Fibers".
You will get best results if, along with your dye, you also buy the auxiliary chemicals recommended in the best recipes for Lanaset dye. For dyeing the jacket a single solid color, please examine PRO Chemical & Dye's instructions for "Immersion Dyeing using Sabraset/Lanaset Dyes"; for rainbow-dyeing it two or more different colors, see their instructions for "Rainbow Dyeing using Sabraset/Lanaset Dyes".
Lanaset dyes tend to be more expensive than other types of dye for wool, but the dyes go a long way, and the colors are very rich. For pale pastels, use a much smaller quantity of dye powder in the recipe. To dye one pound of yarn a dark color, you will need nine grams of dye powder, but to dye it a pale color, you will need only one gram of dye per pound of yarn. (Always weigh your materials before dyeing them.) To get started on dyeing with Lanaset dyes, you'll probably want to buy an four-color sampler set, which is less expensive than buying full-sized jars. It is unlikely that there's a local shop near you that sells these dyes; if you do, I want to encourage you to give it your business. If not, you can mail-order the dye. Good sources in the US include PRO Chemical & Dye, Paradise Fibers, and Earth Guild.
I just checked your IP address (which was included with your message); it looks as though you are in Australia. If so, this will make a difference in where you wish to order your dye from. The best source I know for Lanaset dyes in Australia is KraftKolour . It is not uncommon for Australian dyers to mail-order dyes from PRO Chemical & Dye or other American suppliers, but, in that case, it is necessary to telephone to place your order, so that you can specify a slower and more economical shipping method than is listed on the web sites.
If you are ordering from KraftKolour, you should also consider their Lanasol dyes and their "Premet" (metal complex dyes, also known as premetallized dyes). These are excellent in washfastness, similar to the Lanaset dyes. Acid dyes that are not premetallized will not resist washing nearly as well as Lanaset, Lanasol, and premetalized dyes. The Lanasol dyes are fiber reactive dyes for wool, and are, in my opinion, the most suitable type of dye to use for dyeing wool baby garments; in the US, they are sold as part of the Lanaset dye range.
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Message: I am wanting to dye a baby jacket knitted in a 70% wool/30% nylon yarn. The manufacturer could not recommend a dye for a mixed blend. I am hoping you will be able to help. Many thanks, in anticipatiion.
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(For silk, wool, angora, mohair & nylon)
Lanaset 4 Color Dye Sampler
$13.25
Everything you need to get started dyeing silk or wool with Lanaset dyes: four colors (Sun Yellow, Scarlet, Royal Blue, and Jet Black), plus citric acid, sodium acetate, Glauber salt, Albegal SET, and Synthrapol.
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Paradise Fibers
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As a general rule, the dyes that work on wool will also work on nylon, though it might take the dye a little more or less intensely. Although nylon is a synthetic fiber, it chemically resembles wool and other proteins. The dyes used on wool and nylon are called acid dyes, because they are used with a mild acid such as vinegar.
Since baby clothes must be washed a great deal, I strongly recommend that you use high washfastness as your priority in choosing a dye. Most acid dyes will tend to wash out in hot water. The most wash-resistant of dyes for wool are the Lanaset or Lanasol dye series. They are so wash-resistant that their washfastness is rated for the results of washing garments dyed with it in 140°F hot water, instead of 105°F lukewarm water as is used for testing the washfastness of other kinds of acid dyes.
See "Lanaset Dyes: A Range of Reactive and Acid Dyes for Protein Fibers".
You will get best results if, along with your dye, you also buy the auxiliary chemicals recommended in the best recipes for Lanaset dye. For dyeing the jacket a single solid color, please examine PRO Chemical & Dye's instructions for "Immersion Dyeing using Sabraset/Lanaset Dyes"; for rainbow-dyeing it two or more different colors, see their instructions for "Rainbow Dyeing using Sabraset/Lanaset Dyes".
Lanaset dyes tend to be more expensive than other types of dye for wool, but the dyes go a long way, and the colors are very rich. For pale pastels, use a much smaller quantity of dye powder in the recipe. To dye one pound of yarn a dark color, you will need nine grams of dye powder, but to dye it a pale color, you will need only one gram of dye per pound of yarn. (Always weigh your materials before dyeing them.) To get started on dyeing with Lanaset dyes, you'll probably want to buy an four-color sampler set, which is less expensive than buying full-sized jars. It is unlikely that there's a local shop near you that sells these dyes; if you do, I want to encourage you to give it your business. If not, you can mail-order the dye. Good sources in the US include PRO Chemical & Dye, Paradise Fibers, and Earth Guild.
I just checked your IP address (which was included with your message); it looks as though you are in Australia. If so, this will make a difference in where you wish to order your dye from. The best source I know for Lanaset dyes in Australia is KraftKolour . It is not uncommon for Australian dyers to mail-order dyes from PRO Chemical & Dye or other American suppliers, but, in that case, it is necessary to telephone to place your order, so that you can specify a slower and more economical shipping method than is listed on the web sites.
If you are ordering from KraftKolour, you should also consider their Lanasol dyes and their "Premet" (metal complex dyes, also known as premetallized dyes). These are excellent in washfastness, similar to the Lanaset dyes. Acid dyes that are not premetallized will not resist washing nearly as well as Lanaset, Lanasol, and premetalized dyes. The Lanasol dyes are fiber reactive dyes for wool, and are, in my opinion, the most suitable type of dye to use for dyeing wool baby garments; in the US, they are sold as part of the Lanaset dye range.
(Please help support this web site. Thank you.)