Name: Deborah

Country: US

Message: I am dyeing Tencel (which is similar to rayon) and have Procion MX dyes and Cushing Direct Dyes.  Instructions for dyeing are different. (MX uses soda ash and no heat; Cushing says vinegar and heat.) Can they be used together (ie. one area with MX and another with Cushing direct)? Also, Cushing does not say to use Retayne afterwards - your website and many others says Rentayne is necessary for washfastness.

The dyeing techniques for direct dyes (such as Cushing direct dyes) and fiber reactive dyes (such as Procion MX) are too different to allow you to combine them into a single application. I recommend that, if you use both on a single piece, you apply them in completely separate steps. Apply the fiber reactive dye first, since it attaches to the fiber much more permanently than the direct dye does, so there's no question of the first coming out when the second dye is applied. 

It's unusual to combine fiber reactive dyes with direct dyes, since direct dyes are in so many ways inferior to fiber reactive dyes. If you buy direct dyes in bulk, they are cheaper than fiber reactive dyes, but in small quantities direct dyes do not give you even this advantage. Direct dyes are not as fade-resistant as fiber reactive dyes, even when they are treated with a cationic dye fixative, though it does help considerably. Direct dyes are also more trouble to apply, and less versatile, since they should be applied at nearly boiling temperatures. They are intended for dyeing the entire piece a single color, not for applying to only part of it, since direct dyes in one section will tend to bleed onto the rest of the piece whenever you wash it.

In order to combine direct dyes and fiber reactive dyes on one piece, apply the fiber reactive dyes first. Use soda ash to set the Procion MX dye, following a good recipe; do not use vinegar with Procion MX dye on Tencel, because it neutralizes the soda ash, whose high pH is required for the dye-fiber reaction. After completing the dyeing process with Procion MX dye, wash your fabric once in cool water and then two or three times in very hot water, to remove all excess unattached dye. Do not wait to do this hot-water wash-out until after you've used the direct dyes, because a portion of the direct dyes will be removed by this treatment. Direct dyes attach to the fiber only loosely, in much the same way as the unbonded excess fiber reactive dyes.

After you've completed your dyeing and washing-out of the Procion MX dye, you can, if you still want to do so, apply a direct dye. Salt must be used in dyeing with direct dyes. However, vinegar is not needed; vinegar does not improve the washfastness of Cushing direct dye. Vinegar is important in dyeing wool and other protein fibers with Cushing Acid Dye, but never in dyeing cellulosic materials such as Tencel. The Cushing Direct Dye recipe recommends the use of vinegar and salt, not in the dyeing process itself, but in an after-wash; unfortunately, it's not true that the vinegar will improve washfastness, as they claim. What is the vinegar good for? Probably only as a fabric softener, as recommended by Martha Stewart, who suggests using vinegar in the final rinse of your laundry instead of using commercial fabric softeners.

If washfastness is a concern for you, or if you want to dye only part of a garment or piece of fabric, you should not choose Cushing direct dyes or any other direct dyes. Direct dyes are notorious for bleeding and fading quickly in the wash. They will also tend to redeposit on anything else you wash in the same wash-load, so that, if you fail to carefully separate your clothing by color, your bright and light-colored clothing will become muddy in color, and your whites will become dingy. (In contrast, Procion-dyed laundry does not have to be sorted, regardless of the washing temperature, once the initial washing-out has been completed.) There is no strong chemical bond holding direct dyes to the fiber, as there is in the case of fiber reactive dyes. The use of a cationic fixative such as Retayne is helpful for reducing the tendency of direct dyes in clothing to bleed in the wash, and I strongly recommend it if you use any brand of direct dye on anything that must be washed repeatedly, such as clothing. 

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Name: Barbara

Country: USA

Message: I have several bolts of white tulle that I need to dye or change to ivory color for my daughter's wedding.  What would be the simplest and best way to do this?

It depends hugely on the fiber content of the tulle. Nylon tulle is completely different from polyester tulle, for dyeing. Which do you have?

If you have 100% nylon tulle, and if it is free of any finishes that might resist the dye, and if the fabric is machine washable, then the simplest approach would be to use an acid dye. Jacquard Products provides instructions for using their acid dyes in hot tap water in the washing machine. (See "How can I dye clothing or fabric in the washing machine?"; that page includes a link to their recipe.) It doesn't work as well as dyeing nylon with almost-simmering water, at 185°F, but for an ivory color it should be highly adequate, and far easier to do. 

All-purpose dyes, such as Rit or Tintex, can also be used for dyeing nylon, because they are mixed to contain acid dyes; when dyeing nylon, be sure to also add white vinegar, as in the Jacquard acid dye washing-machine recipe. The type of acid dyes used in all-purpose dyes is called "Strong Acid", which means they need more vinegar than other classes of acid dye. The makers of Tintex dye in Australia recommend adding 100 ml of vinegar to each gallon of water, when dyeing nylon with all-purpose dyes; this works out to be equivalent to two quarts of ordinary distilled white vinegar in a regular size (twenty-gallon) top-loading washing machine. Use only a small amount of dye in order to get a pale ivory color.

Don't crowd the washing machine, when you're using it to dye fabric; weigh your fabric while it is still dry, and dye only about five pounds of it at a time, being careful to keep records of how much dye you use, so that you can use the exact same amount of dye and fabric in any subsequent loads. If you use a different amount of fabric or of vinegar in your second load, it will end up a different color than your first load.

If you have polyester tulle, ordinary dyes will not work. You cannot dye polyester with acid dye or with all-purpose dye. Only disperse dyes will work on polyester. Disperse dyes must be purchased by mail-order, and they require that you boil the fabric with the dye in an enormous cooking pot, one which you do not plan to ever use for cooking food again. See "Dyeing Polyester with Disperse Dyes", for more information. To be honest, I would not go to all that bother. It would be much easier, and probably more cost-effective, to buy tulle in the correct color, rather than going to the expense and trouble of dyeing polyester tulle. It's not as though ivory-colored tulle is a rare commodity.

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Name: Patricia

Region: Massachusetts

Message: Help!!!! I purchased a black wool blend coat (Nine West) from Macy's and have worn it maybe 5-6 times.  I first noticed that when I put my hands in the pockets, my finger tips looked dirty (black) from rubbing the fabric. I thought that this was just from lint in the pocket lining. Today I noticed that my car seat (light beige, suede-type fabric) has been blackened by this coat! 

(To be certain it was from the coat, I tested this theory by rubbing my coat with a white cotton t-shirt and, sure enough, the t-shirt turned black...like I had just used it for polishing black leather shoes.)  I read about "crocking" on your website. I believe this may be the problem. What is your opinion?

Most importantly, could you advise me on how to best remove the dye from my light beige car seats? I am so upset. It's bad enough that I have to take the new coat to a dry cleaner to see if they can set the dye, but now I have to find away to clean the car seats without damaging them any further.

Thank you for any help you can give me with this very, very aggravating problem!

Your coat is defective. You are correct that this problem is called crocking. I do not recommend that you try to get a dry-cleaner to set the dye in this coat; it is not unlikely that they will be unsuccessful.

Instead, you should return the coat to Macy's in exchange for a full refund, plus a refund for the cost of having your car's upholstery professionally cleaned. I don't know whether a professional cleaning will save the appearance of your car's interior, but the pros may be able to do a better job than you can do yourself. Shampooing the upholstery, preferably using hot water, might work to remove the transferred dye.

A properly dyed coat does not ruin its buyer's car! The coat should have been finished in such a way that dye would not crock off onto furniture. If it was dyed with an acid dye, the dye should have been fixed during application, and possibly after-treated with a cationic fixative, followed, most importantly, by thorough washing out of all loose unattached dye. If the coat was dyed with a vat dye or a sulfur dye, the dye should have been applied at a lower concentration, using multiple dips if necessary to reach a dark color, so that the dye could penetrate into the yarns that make up the weave of the coat, followed by soaping-off to remove dye particles left on the outside of the fibers.

This is not legal advice, since I am not a lawyer, but I believe that the principle here concerns implied warranty. Quoting from page 257 of the 2005 edition of John E. Adamson's book, Law for Business and Personal Use: "Every merchant who customarily deals in goods of a particular kind makes an implied warranty of merchantability to all buyers of the goods. Basically, a warranty of merchantability requires that the goods be fit for the ordinary purposes for which such goods are used." For a coat, these ordinary purposes would include being able to ride in a car, or sit on furniture, without damaging either one. 

When you buy a new coat to replace this one, perhaps you should test it, before wearing it, by gently rubbing a white cloth on an inconspicuous part of the coat, such as an inside hem.

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Name: deb

Country: canada

Message: I am trying to hand dye three 100% wool felt carpets, 48"diameter/1/4" thick. Due to their size, I cannot do immersion dyeing or steam setting. I am wanting to shift from an oatmeal colour to a smoky black blue. I was given some incorrect directions by a local supplier who recommended a soda ash soak (!) followed by MX reactive direct dye application and bagging it in plastic. The carpets turned an iron red shade. I was on the ProChem website and read their direct dye application instructions for wool calling for a vinegar soak.  Has the original soda ash soak affected the wool fibres?  Do I need to neutralize or just wash the carpets before I try the ProChem method? Do you have any suggestions?

I have a large studio space and have made a temporary structure in which I can rinse the carpets well.  Heat is another problem in that I can't get the heat up much higher than 70 degrees due to the size of my space and it is winter and I'm in Canada.

I can't tell you whether or not the high pH of the soda ash has ruined the texture of your wool rugs. All you can do is wash them out and see. It helps a lot that they are felted. The damage you'd see on unfelted wool would look a lot like felting. 

I recommend that you rinse the soda ash and any remaining dye out of your rugs thoroughly with water, avoiding sudden temperature changes. Gradually increase the temperature of the water, since warmer water works better for removing excess dye than cold water does. After rinsing, neutralize the pH of the wool by rinsing with a mixture of 1/4 cup of white distilled vinegar for each gallon of water. If you are going to try the ProChem recipe that calls for vinegar, you want to be sure to have removed all of the soda ash first, as otherwise the remaining soda ash and vinegar will neutralize each other, resulting in the effect of there being less vinegar than you use in the recipe.

It seems very unlikely to me that you can successfully dye wool rugs at only 70°F, with no steaming and no soda ash. Dyeing wool with acid requires some heat. I've been told that the "cold batch" method of dyeing wool with fiber reactive dyes and vinegar produces rather pale colors, due to inadequate heat, in spite of the fact that the method as described actually requires some heat, as provided by sunlight on black plastic bags. (See "Fiber reactive dyes on protein fibers".) This would make it impossible to achieve a dark color, let alone black. Is there any other way to help heat the dye in the carpets? There are steam cleaners on the market that seem inadequate for steam-fixing dye, but surely must be better than room temperature. I wonder if you could rent one.

It will be hard to cover up an iron red shade. Your choice of a nearly black final color is a fortunate one, as far as covering up the iron red color is concerned. I wonder if you would do better to use a fabric paint, instead of a dye, so that you don't have to worry about heating the dye or using wool-damaging soda ash. Fabric paint does wear off more quickly than dye, but it might still be your best bet. In the US, I would recommend trying Dharma Pigment Dyes or Dye-Na-Flow, which are both fabric paints that are thin, like dye. Since you're in Canada, I'd suggest you contact G&S Dye, in Toronto, to ask whether any of their fabric paints are suitable for this purpose. 

On the other hand, whatever damage you've done to the texture of the wool is done, and since the rugs were already felted, they might be fine and not show any significant damage at all. If so, perhaps the best bet would in fact be to repeat the soda ash method you used already. Unfortunately, as you observed, a premixed Procion MX color produces a drastically different color on wool than on cotton. The single-dye unmixed dye colors come out very nearly the same on wool as on cotton. All of the black Procion MX dyes are mixtures of three or more different dye colors. You need to correct the iron red by overdyeing it with a dark navy, and possibly some yellow, as well. You can see which of the Procion MX dyes sold by G&S dyes, or any of several other major dye retailers, are single-hue unmixed dyes on my page, "Which Procion MX dyes are pure, and which are mixtures?". I think, among the G&S dyes, you'd do best to use their 502 slate blue (which is Procion blue MX-2G, a navy blue), and, if that results in too purplish a color, another round of dyeing with some 208 bright yellow (which is Procion yellow MX-8G, ad pure clear lemon yellow). Since these are unmixed single dyes, their results are far more predictable on wool than are any of the premixed colors that were standardized for use on cotton.

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Name: Bob

Country: usa

Message: HI  I now paint white turkey feathers with oil base paint to make them look like real eagle, hawk and owl feathers.  The only thing is, they look great, but the feathers are stiff.  I do not air brush, but rather paint with brushes to get the detail of these feathers.   What I would like to know is what dyes can I use this way to get these feathers to look real BUT also to have the softness of the feather?

I think you would get much better results by substituting a fabric paint for your oil paints. Fabric paints are designed to be soft after drying, while oil paints are stiff and hard, once the oil has polymerized to dryness. For a very thin, dye-like fabric paint, try Jacquard Products' Dye-Na-Flow, or Dharma Trading Company's Dharma Pigment Dye. Since these paints are colored with pigments, rather than dyes, they tend to be more resistant to lightfading than dyes are.

Other fabric paints should also work much better than your oil paints. Since feathers, like silk, are made of animal protein, any silk paint or silk dye would be a good choice. (see my page about How to Dye Silk.) If the feathers will ever be allowed to get wet, then you will have to properly heat-set the silk paint or dye, but if they will be kept dry and out of the weather, you can just let a paint such as Dye-Na-Flow dry. However, true dyes must be rinsed thoroughly after application. Silk paints are set with dry heat, such as a hair dryer or heat gun, while silk dyes are set by steaming, not with a steam iron, which would be inadequate, but rather in a steamer such as you might use to steam vegetables to cook them.

Dye-Na-Flow, like many silk paints, is available in a wide variety of colors, including black, pewter, burnt umber and brown, and you can mix the different colors of paint to get additional shades. Some fabric paints are available only in bright colors, but it seems very likely that blacks and grays and browns will be more useful for many of your natural-effect feather designs.


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Name: Andrea

Country: Australia

Message: Thanks for your very wonderful website. I have been looking for something like this for a long while.

About your website - on the silk dyeing page you mention that silk may be dyed with procion mx using vinegar instead of soda ash. 

I have been unable to locate a recipe for the amount of vinegar to use instead of soda ash.

Also, if you wnat to dye silk with vingear using the cold water method are there any directions for that too? I see there is plenty of how to's for heat setting etc.

Forgive me if the info is already there - I have been searching for a few hours and cannot find the info.

Thanks
Andrea

Hi Andrea,

There's a page on my website with a number of links to recipes for dyeing protein fibers by using fiber reactive dye as an acid dye. See "Fiber reactive dyes on protein fibers". For example, Dharma Trading Company's "Tie-Dyeing Silk in a Microwave with Vinegar", calls for using undiluted distilled white vinegar, which contains 5% acetic acid by weight, to presoak the silk. This is a stronger acid solution than you need, but it is true that Procion MX dyes require more acid, that is, a lower pH, than most of the acid dyes we use these days. ProChem's "Warp Painting on Silk & Wool using PRO MX Reactive Dyes", recommends mixing equal parts of white vinegar and water, and adding a couple of teaspoons of Synthrapol detergent to aid dye penetration. You can substitute a few drops of hand dishwashing liquid detergent if you don't have Synthrapol. (See "What is Synthrapol?".)

I'm afraid I cannot recommend using cold temperatures for dyeing silk with vinegar and Procion MX dyes. When used with vinegar, Procion MX dyes do not bond to the fiber as fiber reactive dyes; instead, they actually become acid dyes, of a sort. Forming a good bond between acid dyes and a protein fiber requires heat to do very well. There are a couple of "cold batching" recipes in the links on my page about using fiber reactive dyes on protein fibers, but dyers who have used them report that the colors that result are pale, not intense, no doubt as the result of the inadequate dyeing temperature. By all means try one of these recipes, if pale colors will suit your project. Otherwise, I recommend you find one way or another of adding heat to the dye-fiber reaction. You can apply the dye in a pot of hot water (limit 85°C or 185°F), or you can wrap the dyed items up and steam them, as you would steam a vegetable, or you could even use a homemade solar oven to create a hot space for your silk while it is is still very wet with dye (moisture is essential during the heating step). You've already seen my new page, "How to Dye Silk", which includes information on ways to steam-set dye on silk.

If you truly want to use room temperature (21°C or warmer) to dye silk, I recommend that you use Procion MX dyes as fiber reactive dyes, with soda ash instead of with vinegar. This method works extremely well at room temperature, and it is my own favorite method for dyeing silk, due to the enormous convenience, and yet intense dye colors.

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Name: Vicki

Message: I am embarrassed to admit that I do not know how to neutralize my chemicals before discarding down the drain. I do have good pH-indicator strips for pH 0-14 from Earthues (the colorpHast/Merck German brand) which I use to get my 11 pH for dyeing cotton. I assume I use these and add chemicals to neutralize. Might you supply the details of how to do each chemical?

Do you have a septic system? Septic systems are pickier about the disposal of high- or low-pH chemicals than municipal sewer systems.  If you have a septic system, it's a good idea to at least partially neutralize any large volumes of very high-pH or low-pH mixtures, and to be careful to dilute small amounts. It is important to the functioning of a septic system to be careful of the health of the bacteria that keep the system running smoothly; it would be bad for these bacteria to dump a lot of one extreme or the other. 

You don't necessarily have to neutralize moderately high-ph leftover solutions, especially if you are using a municipal sewer system. The small amounts you will dump down your drain are diluted by the thousands of gallons of water that go through the rest of a multi-user system. (Obviously, things are very different for high volumes of industrial waste, because of their quantity.) Since I'm using a municipal sewer system, small quantities, and pHs that rarely go above 11, I do not usually neutralize my solutions at all. For a large indigo dye vat and a septic system, I would certainly want to neutralize it before disposal.

It's kind of fun to neutralize the pH of your solutions. You can use baking soda or soda ash to neutralize acid; when you dump baking soda or soda ash into acid, a huge amount of carbon dioxide gas bubbles up. The same thing happens when you add vinegar to soda ash. Watch carefully to be sure your container does not overflow; placing the container in the sink before neutralizing works well. I'd estimate that your starting container should be at least four times the volume of the contents; either that, or add the neutralizing chemical very, very slowly, so that the first bubbles that are given off have time to disperse before you cause more to be formed. In industrial situations, the carbon dioxide can be produced in such quantities as to create a danger of asphyxiation, as carbon dioxide is heavier than oxygen and will fill up a room from the floor on up, but this is unlikely in small-scale neutralizations. Open a window and be sure that your room ventilation is adequate. 

To neutralize a high-pH solution, you will have to add an acid. Vinegar is the usual choice, though in the lab one might use a few drops of hydrochloric acid. To figure out when you've succeeded in neutralizing your chemicals, the pH strips are great, aiming for somewhere closer to a neutral pH of 7, except of course for the dyebaths whose colors make it impossible for the colors of the indicator strips to be read. For colored dyebaths, I'd recommend basing the amount of vinegar to use to neutralize soda ash, or vice versa, on the amount you used to begin with. With weak bases such as soda ash, or weak acids such as acetic acid, neither of which will ionize completely in solution, you cannot calculate the amount to use to neutralize them simply by looking at the starting pH. 

A good rule of thumb would be to use roughly half as many molecules of soda ash as you do of vinegar, because one molecule of soda ash, Na₂CO₃, reacts with two molecules of vinegar molecules. A mole is a standard number of molecules, used by chemists to simplify calculation. One mole of anhydrous soda ash weighs 106 grams (equals 41 milliliters, or about three tablespoonfuls), while one mole of the decahydrate that is washing soda weighs 286 grams (equals 196 milliliters, or about 3/4 cup). These amounts would neutralize two moles of acetic acid, which would weigh 120 grams; that's the amount of acetic acid in 2400 milliliters of ordinary kitchen vinegar (which is 5% acetic acid, by weight), which is very close to two and a half quarts. So, two and a half quarts of vinegar should neutralize about three tablespoons of soda ash; one cup of soda ash should be neutralized by almost 14 quarts of distilled white vinegar. Not that it's necessary to bring the pH all the way to a perfectly neutral 7.0 pH; 8 or 9 should be okay, too, since it will be diluted by other water that's put down the drain.

One molecule of baking soda, which is sodium bicarbonate or NaHCO₃, reacts with each molecule of acetic acid, so it requires half as much vinegar as soda ash does. One mole of sodium bicarbonate weighs 84 grams and occupies about 39 ml of volume, which is about two and a half tablespoons; it will neutralize 1200 milliliters of vinegar. It will also, by the way, produce one mole of water, which is a little over one tablespoon, and one mole of carbon dioxide gas, which occupies about 22 liters of volume. One cup of baking soda should neutralize about 7 quarts of vinegar, producing over a hundred quarts of CO₂ gas.

If you're using lime, one mole of calcium oxide, CaO, weighs 56 grams (which works out to 16 milliliters, or about one tablespoon), and, like soda ash, reacts with two molecules of acetic acid, so one tablespoon of lime reacts with 2400 milliliters of vinegar. One cup of lime would require about 35 quarts of vinegar to neutralize it. The reaction would quickly produce enough carbon dioxide bubbles to potentially cause a dangerous spill or splash hazard.

Lye, also known as sodium hydroxide, or NaOH, is a much stronger base, which means that it all ionizes in water at once, leading to a higher pH than a similar number of moles of sodium carbonate in water. (A lot of the sodium carbonate in a solution remains unionized, which is why the pH doesn't go up above 12 no matter how much soda ash you put in, but the pH can go above 14 if you add enough lye.) One mole of sodium hydroxide in the form of lye weighs 40 grams, which is about 19 milliliters of the lye pellets that contain 99% sodium hydroxide, a little more than one tablespoon. Since one mole of sodium hydroxide reacts with one mole of acetic acid, this 19 ml of lye should react with 1200 ml or five cups of vinegar; one cup of lye pellets would be neutralized by about 15 quarts of vinegar. This is based on the assumption that the lye was already diluted in a large quantity of water when the dyebath was prepared. The reaction of strong lye solutions with vinegar could be extremely hazardous to be around, since the lye could be splashed about by the formation of bubbles of carbon dioxide. 

Note that lye spills on the skin should not be neutralized in the same way as lye solutions that are being prepared to pour down the drain. In the event of an accidental skin exposure to strong solutions of lye, it is important to immediately wash the lye from the skin by flushing continuously with large amounts of water. There is a popular misconception that neutralizing lye with vinegar will instantly heal a burn, which is impossible; in fact, it merely corrects the pH that can cause further burns. Nobody should use lye without a thorough understanding of emergency procedures; read an MSDS carefully before starting to use it. If it is used carelessly by those who do not understand how to use it safely, lye can cause permanent blindness or severe burns that can lead to permanent disability or death. It can be quite safe for use by those who understand proper laboratory safety procedures, however.

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Name: Nadine

Region: Liverpool, UK

Message: I did search but couldn't find an answer on the site. I have a pure cotton hooded cape, which is black. Is it possible to dye this red? Perhaps by bleaching it first? I don't want it to be a light shade of red, so I wouldn't mind if I can only make it a darker shade, so long as it's recognisably red. Is this possible, and if so, what would I need to do? Thanks very much.

This might be possible. It depends on exactly which dye was used to dye the 100% cotton fabric in your cape. It's impossible to know what that was, so you just have to try and see what happens. The worst that will happen is either no change or a dark brown color. I think you probably do want to take this risk.

There are many different chemicals that can be used to remove dye, but they all fit into one of two classes, oxidative discharges or reductive discharges. Oxidative discharges include ordinary household bleach, which contains hypochlorite. Since your cape is 100% cotton, with no synthetic fibers, this is a possible option for you. (Never bleach synthetic fibers.) However, I think that it's better to try reductive discharges. The stitching used to hold the panels of fabric together in your cape is undoubtedly made of polyester, which may be damaged by bleach (bleach turns white polyester an ugly and permanent dull yellow) and will likely leave the stitching its original black. There's a better change that a reductive type discharge chemical will decolor the stitching along with the fabric, though there can be no guarantee.

For more information bout the chemicals used to remove dye, see my page, "What chemicals can be used to remove dye?", and scroll down to the section on reducing discharges.

The next question: which of these chemicals can you find most easily in the UK? You can look for  Rit Color Remover, Tintex Color Remover, Dylon Run away for Whites, or Carbona Color Run Remover, as the latter three all contain the same chemicals as Rit Color Remover, though possibly in different concentrations. Failing that, check with your favorite dye suppliers, or go to the website for Fibrecrafts.com, which sells thiourea dioxide in the UK, under the brand name of Spectralite, as well as another dicharge chemical called Formosul. Also buy soda ash (sodium carbonate), to use with the thiourea dioxide. Both thiourea dioxide and Formosul work best on the stovetop, but don't use them in an aluminum pot, because soda ash reacts with aluminum. Stainless steel or unchipped enameled cooking pots are the best for this purpose. The pot should be large enough for the cape to move around in freely; a sufficiently large pot for a sizable cape may be expensive. Rit Color Remover and similar products can be used on the stovetop or in a washing machine; the washing machine does not work quite as well, due to its lower temperatures, unless you can set the temperature of the water to very hot, but it's so much easier than the stovetop method that it's worth trying in the washing machine first, using the hottest water available.

Detailed instructions for using these products may be supplied by the manufacturer; in the case of Rit Color Remover and other products that come in small boxes, buy several boxes, in order to have enough of the chemical, and look on the inside of one of the boxes for instructions. You can't read the instructions without destroying the box, but the stovetop instructions are quoted  in a dye forum post, "how to use sodium hydrosulfite to discharge dye". You can also look at the website of PRO Chemical & Dye, an excellent dye supplier in the US, for their detailed recipes for how to use the bulk products Formosul or Thiourea dioxide (also known as thiox). See ProChem's instructions for removing color with thiourea dioxide [PDF] and their instruictions for removing color with formosul [PDF]. Another excellent dye retailer in the US, Dharma Trading Company, sells thiourea dioxide under the name Dharma's Dyehouse Color Remover; they say it by can be used by simmering it on the stovetop or by using very hot tap water in a bucket or washing machine, but give only instructions for the stovetop method, as well as direct application which is not appropriate for this project.

If you are lucky, you will lighten the color of the fabric enough to dye your cape red. It will probably not discharge all the way to white, but a brown or beige color is likely. The hotter your water, the more likely that the dye chemical will work, but some dyes will not lose their color no matter what you do to them, so you must regard this project as an experiment. The color you produce is unpredictable.

If enough of the black dye is removed, you can then dye the cape red. Red is possible to achieve on top of beige or yellow or orange or light brown, but impossible over any bright or dark blue, green, or purple. I recommend fiber reactive dyes, such as the Procion MX dye sold by Fibrecrafts, or the Dylon Machine Dye or Dylon Hand Dye which I understand to be widely available in your area. For the Dylon Dye, follow the instructions on the package; you may need several packets, since each one dyes only 1/4 to 1/2 pound of fabric. (Weigh your cape while it is dry.) For the Procion dyes, come back for more advice; there is plenty of information on my website about Procion dyes, and, if you don't find the answer you need, you can always try asking.

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Name: Vickie

Country: usa

Message: Hi Paula,

I saw an ad on your site for a water softener called 'Hardness Master'. I went to the web site, I like what it says.  I was wondering, since you are so knowledgable about such things, if you could check out the web site & let me know if you think it would really work & provide to soft water I need for my tie dye.  Here is the site: www.equinox-products.com/HardnessMaster.htm.  Thank you so much. 

Vickie

Hi Vickie,

I'm afraid I find it difficult to believe the claims for this sort of "alternative" water softening system. The manufacturers claim that, by applying a magnetic field to your pipes, simply by wrapping the pipe in an electrical wire with a certain frequency and strength of current, they can change the hard water molecules to soft crystals (even when their system is used on iron pipes, which will block the fields). They say that this treatment does not remove the calcium and magnesium from the water, but somehow magically turns it soft anyway. I don't know what the manufacturers think is "soft" about the calcium and magnesium ions still present in water that has been treated by their system, but the fact that these ions are still in the water means that they will cause the same problems for dyeing as those in untreated hard water. Unfortunately, the field of water treatment is full of pseudoscience.

Dr. Stephen Lower, professor emeritus at Simon Fraser University, on his site about water-related pseudoscience, fantasy, and quackery, concludes about the HardnessMaster system, "There is no scientific basis for most of their claims."

The ad you saw must have been a Google ad. In general, I like their ads because they are in some way related to the content of the page, and they don't blink or have other maddening distracting animations. (I can't even read a page which has animations to distract the eye from the line of text.) However, I can't approve of this particular advertiser, because I do not believe in the efficacy of their product.

For water softening systems, I recommend either the sort that replaces calcium and magnesium ions with ions of salt, or the deionizer sort that removes the ions from the water altogether. The amount of salt that is added to the water by the first treatment is low enough to have little or no effect on dyes, and there is no question about the effectiveness of this type of system. Deionized or distilled water is also free of the water hardness ions, but these systems are more expensive. I recommend any main-stream water treatment company, such as Culligan and the like, not companies pushing "alternative" treatment systems that rely on mechanisms that are unlikely to be effective.

Because it is healthy for people to drink hard water, it is common (or used to be) to install such systems only on the hot water supply, and not the cold water supply; if this is true for the system you choose, use only the treated water for dyeing and for washing, even if you have to let the water cool before use.

It's not necessary to install a water softener in your home to get the benefits of softened water. You can use the water softening chemical, sodium hexametaphosphate, as an additive in your dye mixtures, soda ash mixtures, and washing water. You can buy this chemical from your dye supplier. It is safe, economical, and easy to use. Its only drawback is an environmental one: phosphates similar to those it contains, such as the phosphates in agricultural fertilizers and laundry detergents, provide excess nutrition to algae in water runoff, resulting in low-oxygen 'dead zones' in large bodies of water. For this reason, it is important to limit the amount of phosphates in our waterways and sewer systems; however, the small amounts required for hand dyeing by an individual are insignificant compared to other sources of phosphates in the waste stream.

For more information about softening water for use in dyeing, see the following pages on my site:

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Ms. Burch,

I have found your site to be the most amazing resource for learning and products.  Thank you so much.

I am having a problem with my black dyes.  I have Pro Deep Black 609 from Pro Chemical and Dye.  I continue to see a light pink shadow around the black.  I called the company and they told me to crush it when I mix it to make sure all of the fuchsia mixes in.  They also suggested straining it.  I have tried both and I still have light pink surrounding the black.  So, what black do you use, and do you have any better suggestions?  Thank you!!!

Cindy

Hi Cindy,

Halos of different colors are common in direct dye application, such as tie-dyeing or dye painting, as well in low water immersion. One way to reduce the formation of halos in tie-dyeing or dye painting is to thicken your dye with sodium alginate. See my page, "Sodium alginate, Superclear, and other dye thickeners". A lot of tie-dyers always thicken their dyes with alginate, or with the liquid equivalent, Superclear.

There is no unmixed single-hue black among the Procion MX dyes. All Procion MX blacks are mixtures. Since they are mixtures of different colors, the colors of the halos will vary. In every case, it is the slowest-to-react dye in a mixture that forms a halo, since it has more time to creep along the fiber before it reacts with it. For example ProChem's Black 608, which is the manufacturer's mix Procion Black MX-CWNA, tends to form blue halos.

ProChem's black 609 is supposed to be unique for its ability to produce neutral grays at any dilution, when vat dyed (in a bucket or washing machine). Other black Procion dye mixtures may produce a greenish color, or a bluish color, or a purplish color, when used at concentrations too low to produce a good black, so Prochem's Black 609 is particularly useful. Black 609 is not designed to be a perfect black for direct application, though it's fine if you don't mind pink halos or if you thicken your dye with alginate. 

Note that your pink halo is NOT fuchsia, the common name for Procion red MX-8B; fuchsia, as the fastest-to-react of all the Procion dyes, is the least likely of all the dyes to form a halo, in the presence of soda ash or other source of high pH. In fact, fuchsia strongly encourages halos of any other color to form around it. Fuchsia stays wherever it's put. A pink halo may be due to another Procion red, such as Procion red MX-5B, a favorite for color mixing. The suggestions to crush the dye powder and to strain it are good ones for the infamous red spot problem, but no answer at all to the problem with halos. 

There is another fiber reactive dye that is a pure black, however, and so it does not form halos. It is Colour Index reactive black 5, a Remazol dye which I like very much. You can use it with Procion dyes, though it does require a little more warmth than they do. It's particularly good for low water immersion, because it stays black (or gray) when it spreads out, instead of separating into lots of different colors. (Of course the separation into lots of different colors can produce great effects, too, when that's what you want.) Look at my post in the Dye Form from back in May 2006, "Black Dyes: mixtures and single-color blacks". It shows the difference between LWI with a black mixture, versus LWI with reactive black 5.

You can buy alginate from any good dye supplier, including your current supplier, PRO Chemical & Dye; they also sell a "print paste mix" which is highly suitable for this use. Get the SH formula for tie-dyeing and for dye painting on thick fabrics such as cotton t-shirt material; the the F formula is for painting on thin silks. Alginate is a great solution for both tie-dyeing and dye painting. It's not a solution for the separation that occurs in low water immersion, however.

You can buy reactive black 5 from ProChem as their Liquid Reactive (Remazol) LR604. This is the most economical form in which to buy this dye, and its 50% strength, already dissolved in water, is very convenient to use. The same dye is also in Jacquard Products' Red Label Silk Colors, in more dilute form. It is not in the newer Vinyl Sulphon Liquid Reactive Dye Concentrate, whose black contains a mixture of other dyes instead. Dylon Permanent 12 Black, which can be found in some crafts and sewing stores, including Joann's Fabrics, contains reactive black 5 as well, pre-mixed with auxiliary chemicals for solid color dyeing.

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Country: UK

Message: Would these instructions apply to dyeing an item which is 100% acrylic? Is Jacquard iDye Poly a suitable product for dyeing acrylic? What do you mean by a 'dye carrier' which you mention in the answer which you gave to the FAQ? I want to dye an item which is white and 100% acrylic black.

As you already know, you cannot dye acrylic with most dyes. The dyes that work on cotton, silk, or wool will just wash out of acrylic. There are two types of dye that do work on acrylic, one being disperse dye, such as iDye Poly, and the other an entirely different kind of dye,  known as basic or cationic dye. See "Dyeing Acrylic".

The safest way to dye acrylic is to boil it with the polyester dye which is called disperse dye or transfer dye. This is the method I recommend for dyeing acrylic. iDye Poly should be suitable for this purpose. Unfortunately, like all disperse dyes on acrylic, it will yield only pale to medium shades, depending on the amount of dye. That means that black is not an option. Would a lighter color, such as medium grey, or something more colorful, do for your project?

The dye carrier chemical is important with high-energy disperse dyes for dyeing polyester to full color intensity, but it is neither needed nor helpful for dyeing acrylic. There are significant chemical differences between acrylic and polyester. The iDye Poly dyes appear to be a low-energy disperse dye that does not require the carrier chemical even for polyester.

Acrylic can also be dyed with another type of dye, called basic dye. This dye gets the name from its positive charge; all basic dyes are cationic dyes. (All other types of dye are either negative in charge, or neutral, depending on the type of dye.) The good thing about basic dye is that you can use it to dye acrylic black. However, there are, unfortunately, many bad things about basic dye. Basic dyes are more of a pain to use than other dyes. 

You absolutely must buy a large and expensive cooking pot to devote to the purpose of dyeing, because no cooking pot that is used with basic dyes should ever be reused for food preparation. You can't dye acrylic at room temperature, so a cooking pot is required. The pot must be large enough for your garment to move around in freely; depending on the size of your item, this may require a five-gallon pot (20 liters). Furthermore, since the dye must be applied with vinegar or another acid, you must avoid materials that will react with vinegar; don't get a cheap aluminum pot. You must have either a stainless-steel pot or an enamel-covered pot, to use as your dyeing pot for dyeing acrylic. For outdoor use, you will need a propane burner or electric hot-plate to provide heat for the dyebath.

Basic dyes are inappropriate for use in a home kitchen. In some cases, the dyes themselves are known carcinogens; that is, an inappropriate exposure to them now will sometimes cause a case of cancer many years later. This is not true for the much safer dyes we use for cotton or polyester. Basic dyes can be used safely in a well-appointed laboratory with every safety precaution. If you must use basic dyes at home, use them out-of-doors, in an area where children do not play.  You must not get any of the dye on your skin; wear heavier gloves, more reliable than the thing disposable latex or nitrile gloves we use with less dangerous dyes. It's important not to spill basic dyes in your kitchen for two reasons: one is their long-term toxicity, and the other is the fact that they stain everything they touch. Most other dyes easily wash off of any surface, such as plastic, but basic dyes stick to almost everything. Another extremely important precaution is to avoid breathing any of the dust from the dye, when you open the jar and measure out the amount you need, to dissolve in water. Dry dye powder can be caught by the slightest draft and fly around the room. It's best to measure out the dye in a box that has holes cut for your gloved hands, and a plastic window at the top so you can see what you're doing; this helps prevent the lightweight dye powder from flying across the room. It is important to wear a well-fitted dust mask (one that does not allow you to get any air in around the edges) when working with the dry dye powder, as well as eye protection such as safety glasses, and clothing protection such as a lab coat which you do not wear into your home.

Neither disperse dyes nor basic dyes can be purchased in local shops. You will have to go to a dye supplier, or mail-order your dyes. In the UK, where you are, you can buy disperse dyes from Kemtex Educational Supplies, Fibrecrafts, and Rainbow Silks, as well as some other dye suppliers, but none of these companies appear to carry basic dyes. In fact, I do not know of any UK source for small hand-dyer quantities of basic dyes. Town End Colors for Industry has information on how to use basic dyes, but they sell only to industry, in huge quantities, not to hand dyers. You may be able to find the basic dyes methylene blue or malachite green from industries other than dye suppliers, such as medical or chemical suppliers, or perhaps suppliers for aquariums (these dyes are sometimes used as drugs for tropical fish), but they won't have a good black basic dye mixture. If it's worth the cost and inconvenience to you, you can order basic dyes from the US, from Aljo Mfg. in New York, or from Australia, where Batik Oetoro sells basic dyes under the brand name Sandocryl; for contact information and links, see my page, "Sources for Dyeing Supplies Around the World".

A third option is to use fabric paints, instead of true dyes, in a process called pigment dyeing. You will never be able to get a perfectly smooth, even, solid color, but you can get some interesting results, especially if you decide to use multiple colors. Fibrecrafts in the UK sells Jacquard Products' thin fabric paint Dye-Na-Flow, a fabric paint that is made to mimic a dye, which, unlike some fabric paints, does stick to synthetic fibers, and they carry it in both large and small jar sizes.

In conclusion, I suggest that you either choose a lighter color than black, so that you can dye your acrylic with safer, easier-to-get disperse dyes, or choose an item of a more easily dyeable fiber, such as cotton, viscose rayon, nylon, silk, or wool, to dye.

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Dear Paula,

I have reviewed many safety-related comments by you and the Forum members. Please pardon me if I missed one that would have answered this. I have read and re-read the indigo section in J. Lyles' The Art and Craft of Natural Dyeing. I only use plant-derived indigo (not synthetic.) I understand that each type of indigo vat has different properties in terms of color depth, appropriateness for resist techniques, etc. I am asking here just about safety. I use a fume canister mask and safety glasses to mix the vats. I (usually) use good gloves while dyeing.
 
I have four related questions:  
First, are there any of these four vat types you would rule out for long-term, virtually daily, professional use on the basis of being too unsafe? 
• Lye-hydrosulfite (e.g., Earthues' recipe),
• Zinc-lime (Lyle's recipe),
• Lyles' Fermentation Vat No. 3: Artificial Sig Vat,
• Pre-reduced Indigo Crystals with soda ash and thiox (either Dharma Trading &/or Earthues recipes) 

Hi Vicki,

Given that you are a careful person who wears gloves as needed, and a properly-fitting respirator and eye protection as needed, I would think you'd be able to use any of the recipes without long-term problems. There are some real safety differences among them, but any can be used safely, with care. 

To see an example of what can happen without any consideration for safety, see the 1970 interview with tie-dyer Maureen Mubeem, quoted in a post I made in 2008 on the Dye Forum. She wrote, "You should also have some kind of rubber cap, like a shower cap or something, though I just put a scarf over my head. The fumes dry my hair and make it brittle. The chemicals seem to react with the oils in your hair and reduce the oil content. You can feel it happening. Another thing I noticed is that after I have used the dyes I get a very heavy chest congestion." Mubeem was using synthetic vat dyes, with the same chemicals that are used for the lye-hydrosulfite recipe for indigo, since indigo is a vat dye. She was not using a respirator. The idea of that chest congestion worries me, because I fear that it might be possible that long-term exposures that produce that symptom could, after some years, lead to permanent lung damage. I think that, if you are free of any short-term symptoms that result from your chemical use, you will be fine in the long term. These chemicals do not produce long-term damage without first causing short-term discomfort.

Let's look at the individual chemicals:

Lye
Lye is sodium hydroxide, also known as caustic soda. Here is a link to a good MSDS for lye. The danger of sodium hydroxide is that an accidental spill can cause burns to the skin, or even permanent blindness if it is splashed into the eyes. I caution against its use by people who are not trained in the safe handling of chemicals, and yet in the lab I worked with sodium hydroxide for many years without the slightest hint of problems. If you already know how to use sodium hydroxide safely, I wouldn't worry about it much. Once the stuff is diluted, it's not particularly bad. It's very dangerous to pour water on top of lye, because the reaction produces heat, which can make the lye boil and spatter, so always add lye to water, rather than water to lye. The same rule applies to any strong acid or base.

The ProChem thiox recipe calls for one cup, or 215 grams, of lye for a 20 gallon vat, or 5 teaspoons or 23 grams for a four-gallon vat. 215 grams of lye is 5.35 moles; diluted into 80 liters, that makes a a solution of 0.0672 molar. A one molar solution of NaOH has a pH of 14; 0.1 molar, a pH of 13. So, the pH of your vat will be between 12 and 13, high enough to require caution, but low enough to be easy for a careful person to use safely.

Hydrosulfite and Thiox
Sodium dithionite, which for some reason we in the dyeing field refer to by an older name, sodium hydrosulfite, is a fire hazard if you store large quantities of it. A little bit of moisture in sodium dithionite, moisture from the air penetrating the package, will cause it to spontaneously combust.  It is safe to store small amounts of sodium dithionite, but for large quantities or long-term storage, it's best to substitute thiourea dioxide, which is approximately five times stronger, but lacks the fire hazard properties of dithionite altogether.

Here are links to a good MSDS page for sodium hydrosulfite and a good MSDS for thiourea dioxide. (Don't confuse thiourea dioxide with thiourea, which is a very different and far more hazardous chemical.)

Thiourea dioxide is similar to sodium dithionite, in that both are reducing chemicals which liberate sulfur dioxide when used to remove the color from fabric dye. The side effect found in both of these, which is not found for the other chemicals, is that people with asthma may be extremely sensitive to the sulfur gas that is produced under some circumstances.

Zinc
Here's a link to a good MSDS for zinc metal powder. The biggest risk from zinc comes from exposure to the fumes when it's heated to high temperatures, which is not an issue to you at all. Of course, it's unwise to breath zinc powder. It is unwise to breathe any chemical powder, but it's not as hazardous as the fumes from heated zinc. I would imagine that ordinary care to avoid breathing the powder or getting it on your skin or in your eyes should be sufficient.

Some years ago on the DyersLIST mailing list, Doug Wilson posted a suggestion against using the zinc-lime bath because of problems in disposing of zinc compounds. Checking the 'Disposal Considerations' section of the MSDS, it appears that this could be a real issue for you. "Whatever cannot be saved for recovery or recycling should be handled as hazardous waste and sent to a RCRA approved waste facility." This is not an issue for the other chemicals you mentioned, as long as you neutralize the pH before dumping them down the drain.

Karren Brito says that handling powdered zinc is hazardous, and suggests that a thiox-based vat is safer, in addition to being less temperamental.

Lime
Lime, or calcium oxide, CaO, is sold for use in pickling; I have a jar of pickling lime in my pantry, solely for its interest as a chemical. Like lye, calcium oxide is corrosive; it has a very high pH and can cause severe burns. If you are careful to follow the usual rules of only adding it to a volume of water, rather than pouring water into a container with dry lime, and follow the usual precautions of wearing gloves and eye protection, I doubt you'll have ill effects, but I would not want to recommend that a novice who is cavalier about safety use it. Here's an MSDS for calcium oxide.

Sig
Even the sig fermentation dye bath contains one potentially hazardous chemical, ammonia. Household ammonia is 5 to 10% ammonium hydroxide. It requires the usual precautions about not getting on your hands or in your face, plus of course the stern warning to never mix with hypochlorite bleach. Here's an MSDS for Ammonia, but some of its warnings look like they would apply only to stronger solutions of ammonia, although the MSDS is specifically for 10% or weaker.

Urea can also be added to the Sig vat. Urea in moderate quantities is harmless stuff, often used as an ingredient in skin moisturizers at concentrations up to 25%, though it can be irritating if used wrong, and urea dust should not be inhaled. Here is an MSDS for urea.

Also see my earlier blog entry, "Safety of the caustic soda and hydro-sulphite used for tie-dyeing in Nigeria".

2. I really like the pre-reduced indigo crystals, but I wonder if workers in other countries are being exposed to risks from the reducing chemicals. Do you know the status of worker safety in those factories?

I don't know anything about this. In a properly-equipped factory with adequate ventilation, it should easily be possible to pre-reduce indigo with no harm at all to the workers, but I don't know what the actual factory conditions may be for these workers.

Note that not all of the pre-reduced indigo is derived from natural sources. You should carefully re-read the claims made by your supplier. Synthetic indigo works as well as natural indigo, but it sounds like it's important to you to use only the plant-derived indigo, so be sure to check this out.

3. If zinc-lime is not too unsafe for daily use, could you recommend a mail-order supplier for these chemicals? And are there any special safety precautions for zinc powder?

Maiwa Handprints in Vancouver sells zinc powder for indigo vats. 

The Village Spinning & Weaving Shop, in California, also sells zinc dust, but they warn, "Zinc in this form is more reactive and hazardous than usual. It is potentially flammable, toxic if ingested. Store carefully, away from acids and oxidizing agents." (Here's a link to a PDF file of their catalog.)

 4. Do you know of any research papers on occupational hazards, or lack thereof, for indigo dyers? E.g., Do long-term users of zinc (or lye, thiox, soda ash) have characteristic health issues or shorter lives? Perhaps the professional Japanese indigo dyers? I could not locate relevant research.

This reminds of a story on the DyersLIST mailing list, or some forum like that, some years ago, saying that many of the Japanese workers who used a particular synthetic black dye, in the early days of synthetic dye use, died of bladder cancer. I was never able to track down the details or the veracity of that story, but it does seem possible, given that carcinogenic direct dyes used to be used in dyeing (and still are, in some places), and latex gloves and respirators were not a part of traditional dyeing practices.

However, I've never heard anything like this about any of the methods of indigo dyeing. Indigo in itself, as you know, is non-toxic. I think that the most likely problem resulting from inadequate safety precautions in indigo dyeing would be a respiratory syndrome caused by overexposure to sulfur-containing fumes from thiox or hydrosulfite. If you ever find yourself with an unexplained cough that seems to be in reaction to one of these chemicals, consider whether it might be an asthmatic type reaction, indicating a need for better respiratory protection. Mild asthma often causes coughing, rather than noticeable wheezing. Be careful that your combination of ventilation and cartridge respirator use prevent any sort of noticeable lung reactions, wear gloves so that your skin does not become irritated, and use eye protection so that you never get a splash of lye or lime in your eyes, and I think you will be fine.

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Country: Australia

Message: I have a compression stocking made from 57% Polyamid and 43% Elastic which I would like to tye dye for a friend. I have done a search and have not been totally sure what to do the stocking cannot take any real heat.

Please, can you help me? I really would like to succesfully colour my friend's pressure stocking its a terrible colour to have to wear 24/7 for her but I do not wish to ruin the shape nor the structure.

Looking forward to any hints, tips and ideas. Thank you so much.

kind regards Therese

If the stocking could take some heat, I'd recommend acid dyes for the polyamide (nylon) content of the stockings, in particular either Lanaset dyes or, in Australia, KraftKolour's Premetalised Acid Dyes. However, I'm sure you're right that the elastic content of the stockings cannot take exposure to heat.

What this leaves as an alternative is fabric paint. There are different types of fabric paint, some thick and others almost as thin as dye. Obviously, you want the latter. Sufficiently thin fabric paint can be applied like dye; this process is called pigment dyeing, although it does not involve the use of dyes. Most fabric paints call for the application of dry heat after the paint dries, to set the paint, but some will cure well if left to dry for a minimum of one month, and there is also a acrylic catalyst paint additive, called Jacquard AirFix, that can be added to acrylic paints to make them cure in one day at room temperature, though it can be hard to find.

In the US, the best choices would be either Dharma Trading Company's Dharma Pigment Dyes, which can be diluted considerably and are therefor the most economical choice, or Jacquard Products' Dye-Na-Flow. Since you're in Australia, you'll want Australian sources. You can order from the US to Australia, calling on the phone and requesting the slowest form of shipping for economy's sake, but a local source is more convenient. The Thread Studio, which sells their products by mail-order throughout Australia, carries Jacquard paints and dyes, including Dye-Na-Flow. You can dilute Dye-Na-Flow with up to 25% as much water, and you can tie the stockings, dip them in compatible colors of Dye-Na-Flow paint, and squeeze the paint through, just as you would apply the dye for tie-dyeing with true dyes. Call the Thread Studio to ask whether they carry Jacquard AirFix, or whether they can special-order it for you.

Another method would be to use some thick fabric markers to draw on the nylon blend; they are supposed to work beautifully on almost any fabric, natural or synthetic. The thick Tee-juice brand pens, which are also carried by The Thread Studio, allow a good amount of the fabric paint in them to flow at a time. Unfortuately, they do require heat-setting. However, Marvy brand fabric markers do not require heat-setting, and they are available in Austrlaia from retailers such as Birch Haberdashery & Craft; it's worth checking any crafts store in your area for these. While you cannot tie-dye with fabric makers, you can draw similar designs, mimicking examples of true tie dyes that you like. 

If you have only one color of stocking to work with, you should still be able to make it brighter and more cheerful than it is now, though the original color of the stocking will always show through, darkening any color you apply. If you can possibly obtain the same stockings in white, those will show your colors much more brightly.

The Jacquard Lumiere fabric paints include some very nice metallics and pearlescent colors, which show up well even against a dark background. Perhaps a few dots of metallic gold, or some design made with that, would brighten the stockings for your friend.

The Jacquard Lumiere fabric paints include some very nice metallics and pearlescent colors, which show up well even against a dark background. Perhaps a few dots of metallic gold, or some design made with that, would brighten the stockings for your friend. If you dilute them by 25% and dip damp fabric into the paint, then squeeze it out, you get a subtle colored sparkle. They do require heat setting to make them permanent through the laundry, but letting them dry for a month will help to cure the paint without heat setting, and Jacquard AirFix, if you can get it, solves the heat-setting problem altogether.

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Name: Roxie

Country: USA

Message: Is there any way to salvage a bamboo sweater that I dyed with MX dyes? It's the first time I've had any problems with Pro MX. I wound up with  a number of yellow areas on what is otherwise a teal green. I used Pro MX marine color at very dark concentration to get a nice teal, but the yellow areas are ugly. Any help or warnings as to what I'm doing wrong would be great.

The Marine Procion MX dye sold by PRO Chemical & Dye is a mixture of two or more dye colors. This is true of most of the Procion MX dyes sold by ProChem or any other supplier who sells many different colors, because there are only a dozen or so single-hue unmixed Procion dyes available anywhere. (They are listed on my page "Which Procion MX colors are pure, and which mixtures?".) Since there are no single-color greens in the Procion MX dye line, all greenish colors include at least one yellow and one blue. They may also contain some unexpected colors, such as a red, in order to darken and tone down the brightness of the color.

Depending on how you apply the dye, the different dyes in the mixture can separate out. You see this a lot when doing low water immersion dyeing (see "How to Do Low Water Immersion Dyeing"), and to a lesser extent when tie-dyeing or dye painting. Sometimes it's a good thing, and sometimes, as in your case, a bad thing. You usually do not see it if you immersion dye with a high water ratio, as described on ProChem's instruction sheet, "Immersion Dyeing using PRO MX Reactive Dyes" [PDF]. A high ratio of water to fabric is important when you want to get a single solid color; so is frequent stirring. What method did you use? Did you use a large volume of water, or a small volume?

Another important point is that some fabrics look perfectly fine and white when you buy them, but they may have invisible stains, or an uneven distribution of spinning oils or sizing across the fabric, which will affect how the dye takes on the fabric. It's important to buy PDF clothing when possible, and when it's not possible, to prewash the clothing in the hottest water it can stand, with detergent and some extra soda ash for added cleaning power. Even the best method of prescouring fabric will sometimes fail, however. Some sizings, such as starch, are very difficult to remove, and can cause problems in dyeing.

How can you fix the problem? Two approaches. One is to try to remove the dye you've applied, and the other is to overdye the sweater to make the overall effect more pleasing. 

To remove the dye, you can try either a reductive color remover such as Thiox or Rit Color Remover, or, if the sweater is 100% bamboo (no spandex!), you can try chlorine bleach, which contains hypochlorite. Take a look at my page, "What chemicals can be used to remove dye?". I prefer the reductive color removers, because they are not as harsh on the fabric, but they work best when heated. If a reductive discharge chemical doesn't work, hypochlorite bleach might, or vice versa; it's impossible to predict. The dye removal chemicals might remove all of the dye, or part of it, or none; they might even leave an unexpected color.

Overdyeing is often an excellent solution to this sort of problem. It often works very well with no color removal at all. Just start over again, as though you were dyeing for the first time; additional layers of color will combine with the colors that are already there. If you try color removal and it works partially, you'll most likely want to dye again in order to get the color you want. In your case, since you have yellowish areas on a mostly teal sweater, I would want to overdye it with a blue dye. Blue dye will turn your yellowish spots green, and it will turn your teal sections a bluer blue-green. 

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Name: John

Region: Texas

Message: Paula, I own 3 restaurants.  At one of my locations, I would like to try to have tie dye umbrellas on the patio.  Do you know someone who could take umbrellas and do this?

Hi John,

This is a very interesting question. Tie-dyed patio umbrellas would create a wonderful effect for your restaurant. Unfortunately, there are several points that make this a project too challenging for any dyer I know to want to undertake it. (See "Where can I find someone to dye my clothing for me?".) The problem with a challenging project is that it's apt to fail sometimes, driving up the dyer's costs dramatically.

The best answer may be to contact someone who make a profession of custom hand-painting patio umbrellas. Hand painting is different from tie-dyeing, but it is possible to create an effect very much like tie-dyeing through hand painting. I've seen several links pointing to an artist named Suzi Thomas. 

The main problem with tie-dyeing patio umbrellas is that most are not made with dyeable fabric. The biggest problem will be if the fabric has been treated to resist water. It is impossible to dye or paint any fabric that is water-resistant, though water repellence can be added after the dyeing or painting is done. Some fibers that umbrellas are made from are dyeable, while others are not. A 100% cotton umbrella is the most easily dyed. In contrast, if an umbrella you buy is made from acrylic or olefin, it can't be tie-dyed. The wonderfully sun-resistant fabric made by Sunbrella cannot be dyed at all after it is made. Polyester can be dyed with iron-on transfers made from disperse dyes, but the tie-dyeing technique for polyester is so cumbersome that nobody is willing to custom-dye polyester.

The other problem is that this application will require highly light-resistant dyes, far more so than anything used indoors. All dyes are susceptible to damage from sunlight, some more than others. Pigments and paints are usually more resistant than dyes, but even those can have problems. I've seen street signs that had been inadvertently painted with the wrong red pigment in their paint, so that they faded extremely quickly. Unlike fabric paints, house paints tend to be very stiff and hard when applied to fabric, but their sun-resistance is a big plus. It looks like Suzi Thomas uses exterior paints for their sun-resistance.

I hope I will be seeing hand-painted tie-dye pattern umbrellas in front of your restaurant.

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Country: United States

Message: I have a prom dress that I bought a few years ago. I have a formal to go to, and I dont like the color any more. I want to know if I can dye it a different color. My dress is light pink, like, lighter than baby pink, and I want it to be bright pink or medium purple. I have called all the bridal stores in my area and they dont dye dresses. Do I risk damaging the dress I have, or do I have other options?

The first question you have to ask about any clothing you want to dye is, is it washable?, and the second question is, what is the fiber content?

You can't dye anything that isn't washable, and the type of dye and dye application method depend entirely on what fiber the clothing is made of.

If the dress is made of 100% cotton or 100% rayon, or even 100% silk, it's likely to be easy to dye, using the same fiber reactive dyes that are used in tie-dyeing. (See "About Fiber Reactive Dyes".) If it's made of nylon or wool, you can dye it with acid dyes, or even with all-purpose dyes such as Rit.

However, if it's made of polyester or acetate, it will be difficult and expensive to dye the dress. See "Dyeing Polyester with Disperse Dyes". The problem with polyester is that it can't be dyed with ordinary dyes, only with a special kind of dye called disperse dye, which must be applied in boiling water. Merely hot water will not do the job. In fact, you should boil your polyester dress for at least half an hour with the disperse dye, using an enormous cooking pot, one large enough to allow the dress to move in freely, if you want a solid color instead of a tie-dye effect.  A cooking pot large enough to dye a dress is expensive, especially since you should never plan to reuse a dyeing pot for cooking food.

There's also the question of whether the dress is sturdily made enough to survive extensive boiling. There's a real chance of destroying the dress, especially if it's the sort of dress you usually dry clean. All in all, I do not recommend that you try to dye a polyester, acetate, or acrylic dress.

If you're interesting in painting or stamping designs onto your dress, instead of dyeing it a solid color, then you will have other options. You can use disperse dye crayons or paint to make iron-on transfer designs for a synthetic-fiber dress, or you can use a metallic or pearlescent fabric paint for special effects. See "Iron-on Fabric Crayons for Synthetic Fibers", and "Fabric Paints: a different way to color fibers".

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Name: Stacey

Region: Philadelphia, PA

Message: I am school president at an elementary school and we have a large stock of white 50/50 shirts with our school name on them (adult and kids' sizes).  I wanted to see if I could find someone who would dye the entire lot.  Happy with mixed colors and looks, just bright is the only request.  Do you have someone I could contact?  Thank you so much. Stacey

You will not be able to get really bright colors with shirts that are 50% polyester. Only the 50% of the fiber that is cotton will take the dye. Although it is possible to dye polyester, the process is a lot of trouble and will cost a lot more, so I recommend you stick to just dyeing the cotton. This means that you won't be able to get eye-poppingly bright colors, but you can still get pretty pastel colors that are more interesting than the white you have now.

There are a few commercial dyers who are willing to take on this sort of job. See my page, "Where can I find someone to dye my clothing for me?". For solid colors, the most economical choice would be to mail your boxes of shirts off to True Color Fabric Dyeing, in Oregon, and select one of the colors on their "True Color Palette" (though the color will be half as intense on 50% cotton shirts). The cost will be $13.90 per pound of t-shirts (weighed while dry).

Alternatively, you or someone else at your school could buy large jars of Procion MX dye powder, mail-ordering them from a economical dye supplier such as Dharma Trading Company or PRO Chemical & Dye, which have much better prices than any local crafts store. (See "Sources for Dyeing Supplies Around the World".) You will also need to buy soda ash or washing soda, plus a large quantity of ordinary non-iodized salt. You will need to use a top-loading washing machine, and to divide the quantity of shirts you have up into groups of the right size for the washing machine, 5 pounds per load for an average sized washer, or up to 8 pounds per load for a large-capacity home washer. (This is the dry weight of the fabric, before dyeing.) See "How can I dye clothing or fabric in the washing machine?".

For multi-color dyeing, you can crumple the shirts, or have the children tie them as for tie-dyeing, then put the shirts in a large plastic bin and pour Procion dye and then soda ash over them, as described on my page on "How to Do Low Water Immersion Dyeing". Again, this should be done with Procion MX dye, not, for example, an all-purpose dye, such as Rit, because Procion dye is far less expensive per garment than Rit dye, and is much easier to use since it is not a hot-water dye like all all-purpose dyes are. The results of dyeing with Procion dye are also far more satisfactory, as the colors are brighter and last for years longer.

Please note that the shirts must be pre-washed before dyeing, preferably in very hot water. There is also a need to wash the shirts several times after dyeing, to remove excess unattached dye.

For truly brilliant dye colors, it's essential to start with 100% cotton shirts, but you can get some nice bright pastels when dyeing shirts that are 50% cotton and 50% polyester.

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Hi,

I am getting ready to dye a large batch of shirts for a not-for-profit group and I use Procion MX dyes.

My question is, when I rinse the shirts, I do it in my kitchen sink and hand rinse to remove most of the excess dye, and then wash a few together in the washing machine.

Is there a way to make it less labor-intensive? I let the shirts cure for about 7 days before rinsing. 

Thank you, Todd

Yes, there is an easier way!

Since you are letting the dyes react with your shirts so long (I hope that they are at or above 70°F for at least one day of that time), and since you are using Procion MX dye, all you have to do is dump all of the shirts into the washing machine together. Fill the machine at least partway with cold water first. Wash once in cold water, either with Synthrapol or with no detergent at all, to remove the soda ash and any salt or other chemicals; then repeat two or three times with a little Synthrapol or any other detergent in very hot water, preferably at least 140°F. Hotter water is much more efficient than cooler water at removing the excess unattached dye that can muddy your colors or cause temporary staining, but the initial cool water rinse can be important.

If you wash out your dye before every bit of the dye reaction is complete, you can't use this method. If you wait only four or six hours after applying the dye, some dye molecules will remain that are capable of reacting with the fiber and making permanent stains, in places where you don't want it to. (In that case, you must rinse each individual piece thoroughly, to prevent darker sections of dye from staining lighter sections.) If, however, you leave the dyes to react with the fiber for overnight or longer, at 70°F or warmer, then all of the dye molecules will have reacted. Some of the dye molecules will react with the fiber, while some of the dye molecules will react with water. Once all of the unattached loose dye molecules have reacted with water, they can no longer form a permanent bond to the fiber. These fully reacted, hydrolyzed dye molecules can temporarily stain the fiber, but washing in sufficiently hot water will remove these stains. You can wash out up to about five pounds of clothing (dry weight before dyeing), or about ten adult size XL t-shirts, at a time, in a regular top-loading washing machine.

What I do, after leaving the dyes to react overnight in a warm place, is carry the dyed items into the laundry room on a tray, to prevent dripping. I wear thin disposable waterproof gloves. I keep a pair of child's blunt-tipped scissors near the washer, to use to (carefully!) cut the ties just as I am dropping the things into the washing machine, which is already mostly full of water. I run the machine through one cycle in this cool water, usually adding Synthrapol (but never any other detergent) for this initial rinse. After that cycle completes, I wash in very hot water, with Synthrapol or another detergent. Since I have a "water saver" model of top-loading washing machine, it automatically adds cold water whenever I do a hot water wash, so that the water temperature is never hot enough to remove all of the excess dye, so I prevent the addition of cold water by turning off the cold water faucet to my washing machine as the hot water fills the machine, then turn it on again after the washing machine is full.

It is also a good idea to use softened water for your dyeing, if you have hard water. This can help your washing-out to be more efficient. If you don't have a whole-house water softener for the water supply you're using for your dyes (most water softeners are installed for the hot water tap only), then you will want to buy the dyer's water softener, sodium hexametaphosphate, and add a small amount of it to your dye mixtures and to your rinsing water. Working in several different ways, this helps to brighten your final dye colors, prevents the formation of white insoluble flecks when you add soda ash (sodium carbonate) to water, prevents gelling of the popular dye thickener sodium alginate, and prevents the formation of dye-dye complexes that are difficult to wash out of your fabric after dyeing. It's less expensive than using distilled water, and can be added to your washing machine during washout. Sodium hexametaphosphate, a white powder, is sold by Dharma Trading Company as "Water Softener", by PRO Chemical & Dye as "Metaphos", and by Jacquard Products as "Calgon". Don't confuse this with the "Calgon" liquid sold in grocery stores; liquid Calgon is an entirely different chemical, polycarboxylate, which is not suitable for use in dyeing. Check the fine print and make sure that you're getting sodium hexametaphosphate. See my page "Dyeing with hard water: water softeners, distilled water, and spring water".

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