Is it possible to remove dye from cashmere?

Hello,

I recently frogged a sickly pink cashmere sweater and would ideally like to remove some of the dye from the beautiful worsted yarn so it is more of light pink and I can over dye and make it an antique rose-ish colour.

Does anyone know if this at all possible? I have no idea what dye was used and also don't need the yarn to be a uniform hue. I just need to remove some of the saturation.

(It would be nice if it was a bit variegated, actually.)

I was told Formusol might be too harsh for cashmere...?

removing dye from cashmere

Formosul is the mildest of the dye discharge chemicals that you can choose. All the other dye discharge agents require soda ash and a higher pH, so they are all harsher. If you try discharge at all, using Formosul at an acid pH would be the least damaging choice. Look at the three recipes on ProChem's page on how to use Formosul.

There is another option which does not call for any discharge chemical at all. It is much gentler, and it might work, if it happens that the dye used on the cashmere was a leveling acid dye, which is very common. (It's the type of acid dye used in all-purpose dyes such as Rit, as well as better-regarded dyes such as Landscapes acid dye and Cushing acid dye.) What you do is heat the cashmere in a pot of water with Glauber's salt, sodium sulfate. It will not remove all the dye, but may lighten it by about 25%. I posted this before here on the forum:

    Linda Knutson says to weigh the material, while it is dry, then use one-fifth this weight of Glauber's salt, simmering with it for 30 to 60 minutes; the amount of water required would typically be 25 times the weight of the fabric, as in normal immersion dyeing, so for each pound of wool/nylon fabric (454 grams) you'd want three gallons of water, or 11 liters.

-Paula

THANK YOU!!

Thanks so much for this Paula. I may do a test with the sodium sulfate if I can track some down here in the UK. (it always seems so much harder to find things here than in North America for some reason!).

If not, I will give the Formusol a test go.

I will post and let you know what happened!

Much appreciated.
Linda

Glauber's salt in the UK

Glad to help. You can order Glauber's salt in the UK from George Weil, among their Dyeing Assistants and Mediums, or from Kemtex. Check the UK sources under Europe on my Sources for Dyeing Supplies Around the World page.

-Paula

found it...

and ordered! Ta again.
Linda

Update

Just an update on this. I tried the Glauber's salts. It didn't remove the dye, but turned the pink slightly more yellow - peachy almost.

Interesting!

Will leave it as is for now and maybe dye the new garment later on when I am sick of the pink!

Thanks again for the suggestion, Paula

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