community of dyers

Wow! I need to get me an extra fridge for the dyes as they don't go too well with veggies and other things that I usually stuff in the fridge. I always have some tied up things where I have absolutaly no idea what I tied them as. I have a whole bin soda soaked and ready to be dyed with whatever I have left. I also seem to end up with all kinds blues and fuchsia after a dyeing session so things tend to turn out quite nice. Really exiting to see what comes out of those un-identified tied objects!

Isn't that crazy? We've been told that MX dyes will NOT last that long even in the fridge. A few weeks at a low room temp, maybe a few months at a fridge temp. But I just dyed 2 shirts that came out just as bright and vibrant as stuff I did when the dye was fresh!

I can't vouch for every color, tho... but those 2 blues were fine. I bet the red was fine, too. It wasn't fuschia, it was light red, mixing red.

I personally hate not remembering how I tied stuff. How I tie stuff makes a big diff on how I dye it. The half fold spiral, aka the spider fold prefers one color to a side... and I hate it when I dye it like it was a full spiral. I might like results, but no one else cares for em like that. When I am doing a bunch of shirts I sort them by folds as I'm doing that.

Something I tried this time: warming stuff up in the microwave. I needed to do this as I applied the dyes cold out of the fridge. So, 2 thirty second runs in the microwave and then they sat in their bags on a heating pad for a few more hours. Then they went with me in my car to my boyfriends and sat in his warm house until they'd batched for about 19 hours total. I figured that was plenty what with the heating they got... and he keeps his house around 78 in winter. The heat thing is why I don't dye in the winter... my house is usually just barely bearable after I've been home a while. While gone.. heat is OFF. (I've come home to my house being colder inside than it was out... freezing cold... 28 in the house)

One last thing that I can't figure... I use foam brushes to apply dyes to my soda soaked items. I don't know why I'm not contaminating my dyes with the soda ash... you'd think I'd be picking some up while blopping dyes down. But for all the evidence I have... I don't seem to be doing that.

I've only had one color problem so far... as far as dye taking to the fabric, that is... Yellow. I decided that those items weren't soda soaked enough... it was my trial of tieing first and soda soaking after. Didn't work for me as I tried to spin stuff out in the washer and it messed up my ties. Probably would work if I let em soak longer and then let stuff drip dry, but I'm not the patient type. :)

well, that's the news from Arkansas... :)
Vyx

Well, I think you broke my record! I only left my dyes in the fridge for about 3 months this last time. I added to the fuschia, had to make fresh turquoise 'cause I use that a lot, but had leftover yellow, golden yellow, light orange, jungle red, mixed green, cerulean and mixed purple. Truly, the only color that came out pale was the yellow. Otherwise, I'm pleased with the results, so the fridge is the way to go! And I just let the items sit wrapped in plastic for 24 hours. At night, I let my house get down to 55, but recently it hasn't got that cold. As for soda soaking, I tie, soak, squeeze out the excess and let air dry for a 2-3 day period, depending on the weather. I was dyeing woven cotton shirts this time, so they were pretty dry after 2 days. Next time, I think I'll do them a little damper. My Mandala didn't absorb the dye as well as I would have liked, and I think it is due to the dryness.

Judy
Judy Sall Originals
http://www.tiedyejudy.com
"Life without tie-dye is waaaaaaaaaaaay dull!"

"My Mandala didn't absorb the dye as well as I would have liked, and I think it is due to the dryness."

Actually I personally think it depends if the dye is thickened or not. Then it seems to matter how the soda ash crystalises in the fabric. If you look at the way Tom and Martine (True Tie Dye DVD) always dry their thickest mandalas and apply the dye to the dried fabric. I prefer dry fabric, when the dye needs to get in deep. When wet it seems to be saturated alot earlier even before the dyes have reached the innermost layers. I can't get through with thickened dye, though. If I use a Mike Fowler-ish mixture it just seems to roll off the fabric. Sometimes the soda ash creates a crust of some kind, so now I knead all dryed soda soaked fabric before dyeing it and it really sucks it up like a dream. Actually sometimes too good, because I might load my whole batch of dye into one dress since it takes up alot of liquid. Hey, just my 10 cents worth.

That's interesting discussion - I'm never doing dry soda soak items - just because I never know in advance that I'm going to do and have always so little time.
I used to make samples of mixed dye on soda-soaked cotton strip. That was also soaking the dye very easy, you're right!
Nevertheless, I have experienced also this phenomenon: when the fabric is almost dry, but still damp enough to be easy to iron, it soaks the dye very well too.
I think, that dry soda soaked fabrics has probably altered it's surface tension. If you compare it with untreated fabrics - that's big difference.

This was my first try at a Mandala on a shirt, and the first in over a year. I made the mistake of folding both sides into the pattern. This is a lightweight cotton weave, the dyes were thickened, but I was a little leery of overloading the fabric. It may have been my memory of how to apply the dyes was a little faulty. I need to go back and re-view Tom & Martine's video on them! Thanks for reminding me...
Here's the shirt:

Judy Sall Originals
http://www.tiedyejudy.com
"Life without tie-dye is waaaaaaaaaaaay dull!"

I was looking for this section! I knew I read somewhere about people keeping the dyes for a long time and still working well. Great news for me!

What about the chem's? Do they stay good for awile as wellw?
Thanks for the help,
keri

Soda ash by itself, dissolved in water, stays good forever.

Urea solution is good until it starts to smell a little like ammonia. It'll smell very strongly of ammonia if you keep it long enough. Throw it away at the first sign that it's started to go bad.

Print paste goes bad after a while because it has urea in it.

Alginate can get annoyingly thick and goopy, but probably less so with Metaphos to bind the calcium ions.

Tom and Martine's Tie-Dye 101 says dye solutions last only a couple of days at room temp and only a couple of weeks in the fridge, so I was about ready to toss out the 3-week old solutions I have in the fridge. But Paula and other posters have said the solutions should still be good (except maybe the turquoise) - for 18 weeks by Paula's calculations, and "six months and still OK" from someone else. Does anyone else have any experience with how long the solutions last in the fridge?

I've got some Procion MX type dyes, dissolved in water in my little fridge that have been there since the end of July. They seem to still be working fine, though I haven't tried the fuchsia lately. Fuchsia is the one that goes bad the fastest. One or two of the yellows have precipitated out and must be shaken and returned to room temperature before use.

I think the turquoise really was bluer after spending time in the fridge, but it still works quite well.

So Paula, are you saying you could make up an MX stock solution and refrigerate it for up to 18 weeks and still have it viable? Wow, if so. I guess I thought MX, once mixed with water, wasn't good for "very long" - perhaps a week? (Though you say 2 at room temps.)

Also, do you know anything about how good the MX stock would be if you're using it on silk? I know that using old MX powder will result in a faded hue on cotton but still look fine on silk because of its affinity for dye. So if the 18 week stock works on cotton, how long can MX stock be kept to work on silk?

This info has the potential to present whole new options...

So Paula, are you saying you could make up an MX stock solution and refrigerate it for up to 18 weeks and still have it viable?

I think so, Pia. Not sure of exactly how long, but much longer than at room temperature, especially if you're in a place that has warm room temperatures.

Also, do you know anything about how good the MX stock would be if you're using it on silk?

In theory, using MX dyes on silk with soda ash won't work after the dye gets too old, but using MX dyes on silk with acid (such as vinegar) should work fine almost indefinitely. This is because, when you use MX dye with acid, it actually works as an acid dye, so it doesn't matter if its reactivity is gone.
 

There are two main parts to a reactive dye molecule. One part gives it its color, and in many cases is very similar in shape to an acid dye. The other part, which is connected to the part that gives it the color, is the reactive part that can stick on to the -OH groups that stick out of the cotton, as well as on similar groups on a protein molecule. Even after the reactive part is used up, having reacted with the water, the chromophore section can still act as an acid dye. Of course that means it works only on protein fibers, or nylon, never on cotton, once it's gone "bad".
 

Once our MX dyes have gone bad and are no good for use with soda ash, they should still be fine on silk with voinegar. (I say "should" because actually I've never tried it myself.)

I have so little time to dye these days - I have my dyes in concentrated solution in the "vegetables" drawer of the fridge and maybe half year or so and still working.

Jaja, this makes me smile, to imagine all your colorful dyepots in the veggie drawer of your fridge. Doctor's orders for good health: get something from there every day and you'll live a long life! :)

But -- can you tell us the details? What concentrations of solution to you typically use, are you talking MX or other types of dyes too, and what materials do you use them on (I don't think you're just a silk worker...).

--Pia

Pia, I have only MX dyes.
I use maximum concentration (grams per litre) that allows the least soluble primary that I have. (What is in my case 50g/l and I have nothing else but six primaries)
I have it stored in 0.5 PET bottles with wider opening, wiped carefuly with extra absorbent wiper. And all that is packed in plastic bag with tied-up opening - I quess it's quite save. I pack it and unpack it far from food stuff. Once in some period of time I replace bottles and bag with new ones.
This type of bottles I recycle for dye concentrates. Neck of this bottle is wide enough for to insert wider funnel into it and pour in dye-powder inside, then some water, screw on the lid and shake.

I like the idea of bagging the bottles. You don't have children living in your house, I think, but this would help prevent a foolish guest from taking a drink. It's hard to imagine anyone being that foolish, though; guests should always ask before taking their own drink from the fridge, anyway.

I forgot to mention that bottles are labeled with color codes and concentration. And the pack itself is almost hidden from eyes, being in the rear part, hard to reach for lazy person.
Normal drink bottles are in easy access door drawer, plus all inhabitants know about package content.
And yes, so far only animals and adults, no children there.

Jaja, this makes me smile, to imagine all your colorful dyepots in the veggie drawer of your fridge. Doctor's orders for good health: get something from there every day and you'll live a long life! :)

But -- can you tell us the details? What concentrations of solution to you typically use, are you talking MX or other types of dyes too, and what materials do you use them on (I don't think you're just a silk worker...).

--Pia

Wow, Paula, you astound me with your knowledge. I am still troubleshooting this issue now ... I do use the same blender for soda ash solution and for the urea water into which I mix the dyes. I rinse it between, but if the dye is very sensitive to any amount of soda ash, that could be the culprit.

Also, it's been so hot, and I am the impatient type, I've been batching my items out on the patio in the 100+ heat for only 2 or 2.5 hours. It's the yellow MX8-G that is consistently washing out these last few times, could it be too little reaction time? I made an amazing spider pattern today, but the colors are disappointingly dull.

Also, it's been so hot, and I am the impatient type, I've been batching my items out on the patio in the 100+ heat for only 2 or 2.5 hours. It's the yellow MX8-G that is consistently washing out these last few times, could it be too little reaction time?

I guess there's only one thing to do - run a test, dyeing something small, and leaving it overnight.

Using the same temperature/reaction time relationship as before, 2.5 hours at 100°F should be about the same as 7.5 hours at 82° or 12 hours at 73°F. It ought to be long enough, but you can't be sure, for your specific circumstances, unless you test it. You might as well allow more time, just to see. I like to allow a greater excess of time to help prevent backstaining from unreacted dye anyway.

I usually batch my dyes on a table covered in plastic wrap (the kind used for wrapping pallets in nice wide rolls). I cover the dyed items with the wrap and leave the table in the sun.

In our 100 degree Texas sun, I sometimes rinse after 2-4 hours in the sun. The dyes seem to be just as good as overnight. I should point out that each piece I pick up to rinse is hot and steamy.

Sara Earthmama
www.wildtyperanch.com
I blog at www.downtoearthblog.com

Well, my overnight batch had the same problem. I successfully vat-dyed with the same yellow dye yesterday, so it's not the dye powder. I mixed the soda ash up yesterday and double-checked my proportions and that seemed ok. So, I have narrowed it down to the chemical water - tap water, urea, kelp powder. I don't recall how long I've had it mixed, and it's been at our (high) "room" temp for days, perhaps a week or more. It had a very strong ammonia smell when I opened the bottle, is that normal? I dumped it and mixed some more to try again, but I hope you don't mind me checking in here to see if this sounds like the logical step to anyone else. Thanks so much for your time to help me out with this. You can imagine how frustrating to soak, fold, tie, dye, batch, wash out and - ick! everything's beige.

Urea should not smell like ammonia. If it does, you should throw it away (or use it as a high-nitrogen fertilizer, 46-0-0; it should be okay to dump small amounts in the compost pile).

Ammonia is the natural breakdown product of urea. The reason why you don't want it is that it changes the pH. That could have a similar effect to adding soda ash. If you have any spoiled urea water that doesn't have dye in it, and if you happen to have pH paper handy, it'd be interesting to know what its pH is.

You can get by without urea, so if you don't have any fresh stuff on hand, just go ahead and try working without it.

It's not impossible that the problem could be the water, since sometimes water supplies change suddenly, but you'd probably have noticed a big change in the taste if that was it. It does seem likely that your urea is the cause of the problem (combined with the unaccustomed heat).

Thank you. I dumped the urea water, but out of curiosity tested the tap water with our pool test kit, it seems to be rather high pH to start with, off the chart so to speak. Could it be this is high enough that it is starting the dye to react when mixed? I looked at your FAQ about optimal pH being 10.X for most dyes, but I don't know enough chemistry to know how much lower is "safe".

That's very useful. It looks like your water's pH is higher than the 8.2 on the chart. (No telling how much higher.)

Last year for his science fair experiment (not the more recent one on natural versus synthetic dyes on different fibers), my son compared different pHs for dyeing cotton fabric with red MX-5B. As we expected, the ideal pH was 10 or 11, and a pH of 12 was not quite as good. The fabric at a neutral pH and below did not dye. What was surprising was that the pH 9 bath was very nearly as good as the best one, and the one at a pH of 8, while noticeably poorer, was still dyed pretty well.

This means that, while dyeing with baking soda instead of soda ash is a mistake, since the pH of 8 that it produces is not as good as the proper pH, it does actually work. It also means that the pH of your water, when dye is dissolved in it, is certainly high enough to cause the dye to hydrolyze, that is, react with the water, even if you don't add anything to it at all.

Your water softener is useful for removing the "hardness" minerals from your water, which makes soap and dye work better and prevents the formation of soap scum in the laundry, but it does not necessarily do anything to the pH.

You might want to do as the True Tie Dye folks suggest and add a few drops of white vinegar to the water you use for mixing dyes. (This is a bad idea for those of us whose water starts out with a neutral pH!) You need first to figure out exactly how much vinegar to use. You can take a sample of pH-test water with the pink in it, just as in your photo above, and carefully add one drop at a time of white vinegar, stirring, then adding another drop and another, until the pH gets down to about 7.0. Always use the same dropper for this purpose, in case different droppers give different drop sizes. (One drop is about one-twentieth of a milliliter.) It is important to use just enough vinegar to get a neutral pH, and no more. Too much vinegar will give a pH below 7, which will lead to another form of spoilage, called acid hydrolysis. Both acid (low pH) and base (high pH) will shorten the life span of mixed-up dye solution.

I suppose that, with your water supply, you can probably do some dyeing with MX dyes and no soda ash at all, given its high pH. It's best to use some soda ash, though, for most intense results and most efficient use of the dye; a pH of 10.5 or 11 is ideal for most MX dyes, at least when dyeing mercerized cotton.

By the way, a non-dye-related note: drinking hard water is healthier than drinking soft water. Populations whose drinking water is hard have a slightly lower rate of heart disease than populations whose drinking water is soft.

Conclusion: your rapid-spoilage problem is caused by a combination of spoiled urea and high pH tap water that combine to cause a high pH which encourages dye hydrolysis, and the high temperatures accelerate the process dramatically. Try: fresh urea or no urea; refrigeration; and neutral-pH water for mixing up dye solutions.

I don't know if this pertains to the specific dyes your are using, but weird things can happen with Turquoise MX-G.

This dye (when freshly made) has a major cyan peak a smaller peak in the blue region. In solution, at room temperature, the blue becomes more and more intense with time (with the cyan getting lower).

It appears that this dye is reacting with himself to polymerize (without soda ash), because I removed with a special filter the stuff bigger that the expected dye size and this removed the blue peak, while leaving the cyan peak intact.

I'm using very concentrated dye solutions. Still, I would suggest that Turquoise be made fresh to ensure that similar colors are obtained between different stainings. I would expect that using old solutions will cause a shift in color towards the blue side (the older, the more blue).

None of the other pure Procion MX dyes I have (I have most that are readily available) show this strange behavior, and it must kept in mind that Turquoise is used in several color mixes.

Francois

That is fascinating, François! Thanks for posting it. I wish we knew what the structure of this dye is.

What else do we know about turquoise MX-G? Its Colour Index name is reactive blue 140 and it was introduced by ICI in 1975. It is the slowest to react of all the commonly-used dichlorotriazine dyes, and therefore the most sensitive to inadequate reaction temperature. Its chromophore is a copper pthalocyanine, according to Dr. Steve Mihok. It migrates less than other blue MX dyes in paper chromatography, suggesting that it may have a higher molecular weight.

Someone suggested to me once that it was a dimer - at the moment don't remember who - but I guess it's possible that the dimer is the blue peak that you saw.

I think that's all I know.

My old absorption spectrum (below) for reactive blue 140 has two peaks. Does your freshest turquoise have a smaller peak than this? Is the peak I see on the left the blue peak that you saw increase with time?

I wonder if the dimerized or polymerized blue form you saw reacts well with cellulose, or bonds well to proteins, or whether the smaller original size molecule has advantages in binding to cellulose or proteins.

(Could this have anything to do with rahimiii's complaint about blue-colored turquoise, back in April?)

Hi Paula,

Indeed, fresh Turquoise MX-G has a somewhat smaller blue peak.
It becomes bigger and bigger over time.
I only dyed one polymer so far with Turquoise and both peaks are present, so the blue stuff is still reactive.

It is indeed a Copper phthlocyanine (most likely tetrasulfonated).
The blue peak is bigger than a dimer since a used 5 kD and 10 kD cutoff filters to remove the blue peak. The monomer should be a little over 1 kD. The 5 kD filter removes more blue than the 10 kD filter.

This means that all sorts of polymers are present (at least 5 monomers and more than 10 monomers) in this dye. I don't know if its the dichlorotriazine that is reacting with other dye molecules (unlikely without soda ash treatment). Maybe it's the copper ion that is bridging molecules together; that might explain the change in color.

Since I'm using very concentrated dye solutions (saturated), maybe I'm exagerating this behavior.

You might want to perform a simple homebrew test since I don't have the time to do this right now:
Dissolve a bit of Turquoise every day for a week a run a paper chromatography of the different age solutions. You "might" see reduced mobility with age.

I haven't read rahimii's complaint about blue-colored turquoise (I wasn't playing around with dyes in April), but this could be an explanation. I wonder if this goes on in powder form too; that would mean that old dyes should tend to become blue with time.

Francois

I will have to do that test. It's so very satisfying to have your filter results, so we know something about the nature of the polymer of turquoise MX-G.

I wonder if any of the other MX dyes do something similar, associating together with the same dye molecule to create a slightly different color. Among the different dyes on Olli Niemitalo's dye absorption spectra:

...several have more than one peak, but this could be simply due to different parts of the dye molecule absorbing in different regions of the visible spectrum, not necessarily due to a mixture.

On an old paper chromatography I did, below, one of the other dyes, reactive blue 9 (navy MX-3R, I think, though sold by Standard Dye as navy MX-G), migrated almost as slowly as turquoise. I wonder if it is a large molecule, compared to some of the other MX dyes. No idea what its structure may be, though.

(Dyes shown are, left to right, navy MX-G (blue #9), blue MX-2G (slate or cobalt blue), blue MX-4GD, turquoise MX-G, and ProChem mixture Brilliant Blue #4224.)

Hi Paula,

I have all the pure MX dyes from Dharma and none (except Turquoise) seem to polymerize (I did this test on dyes that have been in solution for 3 weeks at room temperature using a 10 Kd filter). Also, their spectra are identical to what I get when freshly made.

Turquoise is a different beast. It's too bad for my applications, because it would be great to have a dye that absorbs near 700 nM. The problem with the blue peak makes this dye unreliable.

I did try to remove the blue peak prior to staining, but this left little usable dye, so I did get pure cyan, but way too light in shade (nearly pastel). I'll send you the scan results of my very preliminary experiences with turquoise.

Francois