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over dying pants w/ bleach stains

Just received a call from a customer that ruined 3 pairs of his favorite pants w/ bleach. The fabric is thin wale corduroy. Thier original colors were black or navy. How difficult is it to overdye this type of a garment? I have limited experience using black. My concern is the difficulty in achieving an intense enough color. Also, will the bleached area reaact to the dye differently than the non bleached. Would I need to strip the pants of all color before applying the black dye? This is not a job I would normally take, but thought I'd look into to to learn something new!
Wendy

By stircrazy at 2012-05-25 01:25 | What I'm working on right now | login or register to post comments | previous forum topic | next forum topic

over dying pants w/ bleach stains

This one's so common that a decade ago I wrote an FAQ about it, How can I fix the bleach spots on my favorite clothing?.

It's not too difficult to fix this problem If the pants are 100% natural plant fiber, such as cotton, and if the bleach did not damage the structure of the fibers too much. It's not worth engaging in this repair project if the pants are largely made of polyester or another synthetic fiber, both because of the different types of damage undergone by different synthetic fibers, and the difficulties in dyeing some fiber combinations. You don't want to have to try to dye polyester pants black!

First thing to do, as soon as possible (though they should be washed or thoroughly rinsed first) is neutralize any remaining bleach to prevent further damage. See How can I neutralize the damaging effects of chlorine bleach? This will reduce the chance that the fabric will eventually shred where the bleach damaged it.

Are the pants made from 100% plant fibers, or do they contain synthetics or any animal fiber? If they're anything other than plant fibers, such as cotton, hemp, linen, or rayon, they may end up falling apart. Nylon and spandex are the most easily destroyed fibers (in addition to silk and wool). This is worth giving your customer a warning over. Even 100% cotton will fall apart after a few washings if the bleach exposure was too concentrated or lasted for too long. So, don't guarantee that the material will last, though with luck they may.

After all that, the question is whether any dye will be dark enough to cover up the stains. Since dye is transparent, at the same time that your dye darkens the light spots, it also darkens the dark areas. Color removal, either with a gentle sulfur-based color remover (such as Rit Color Remover, iDye Color Remover, or Thiox), or with another (careful) round of chlorine bleach, may help. Even if it doesn't remove all the color, if it reduces the contrast between light and dark, that will help.

If the bleached spots are small, a fabric marker, followed by dye if necessary, is still the best idea. Get the closest color match you can with a fabric marker, and keep the marker for future touch-ups in case the marker fades. Fabric markers last better, but even a Sharpie pen can be used if you repeat the use every time the Sharpie pen marks fade in the laundry, as they inevitable do after enough weeks go by.

Finally, after you've removed all the uneven color you can, or applied marker if the spots are small, and have rewashed the clothing, then you can dye. The darker your dye, and the greater the amount of dye powder that you use, the better. A very dark color will cover the contrasting light and dark sections better than a medium-dark one. Weigh the pants. The amount of Procion MX dye powder you will want to use will be up to 10% or even 12% of the dry weight of the pants, for the darkest possible color and therefore the best coverage of light spots. Use the washing machine method to dye them.

But remember, no guarantees. Make sure they know that, while you will do the best you can to repair the damage, good results are not always possible, depending on the amount of bleach damage. You will probably succeed, but maybe not. Tell the customer.

-Paula

By pburch at Fri, 2012-05-25 06:07 | login or register to post comments

over dying w/ bleach stains

Thank you for all this great info! Considering that the only scales I have to work with are the one in the bathroom and my dye scale, with a limit of 250 GM, I am at a loss for dye powder quantity. Do you have an estimate of weight for a man's pair of Levi, thin wale cordory, pants?
Also, if I am to neutralize the bleach w/ 3% hydorgen peroxide,would it work to pour 1/2 bottle into a bucket of water and let one pair of pants soak in it for an hour?...or should it run through the washer?
Wendy

By stircrazy at Mon, 2012-05-28 01:16 | login or register to post comments

over dying w/ bleach stains

You have three pairs of pants to work with, don't you? Weigh yourself on your bathroom scale, with all three pairs of the pants and without them, several times. Take the difference of your average weight with and without all of them in your arms, and divide by three.

The pants have already been rinsed with water, correct? Or run through the washing machine, most likely. That should have been done as soon as possible after the bleach incident. What I would do is pour the 3% H2O2 directly across the bleached areas, wetting them thoroughly, then put the peroxide-wetted garment into a small bucket or basin of water to soak. I'm not sure how much you can dilute the peroxide and have it still work, though it should be easy enough to calculate how much is needed. What we know is that it won't hurt to use more peroxide than is needed, since you're using the very safe 3% dilution.

(Calculating how much, in theory, is needed is a little tedious, so you probably want to skip this paragraph....since one molecule of hydrogen peroxide reacts with one molecule or hypochlorite from the bleach, and since the hydrogen peroxide is sold at a concentration of 3% by weight while the bleach in the bottle is a concentration around 6% by weight, and since the molecular weight of sodium hypochlorite is 74 grams per mole while that of hydrogen peroxide is 34 grams per mole, you really only need about four times the volume of hydrogen peroxide, as compared to the amount of bleach involved in the original spill, not taking into account how much of the hypochlorite was rinsed out.)

-Paula

By pburch at Mon, 2012-05-28 09:50 | login or register to post comments

over dying w/ bleach stains

Yes, the plot is thickening...turns out this guy actually spilled a Drano type drain opener into the washer so the contact with the garment was brief and diluted. He says the fabric looks intact. How would a Drano type chemical effect the fabric? In all likelyhood, this guy is better off buying new pants, but as I said earlier, maybe I'll learn something new!
Wendy

By stircrazy at Tue, 2012-05-29 20:10 | login or register to post comments

drain opener

The question is what particular drain opener he used, since the active ingredients vary. Most are simply lye (also known as caustic soda, sodium hydroxide, or NaOH). Some are based on a strong acid, instead. The MSDS I found for "Drano® Clog Remover" (PDF) indicates its main ingredient as 3 to 7% sodium hypochlorite, so it is basically the same thing as chlorine bleach. Like Clorox, it has sodium hydroxide added to keep the pH of the hypochlorite high, to prevent a low pH from causing chlorine gas to form.

So, for now, I'm saying what he has was probably exactly the same thing as chlorine bleach, so the earlier advice applies unchanged.

-Paula

By pburch at Wed, 2012-05-30 05:59 | login or register to post comments

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