community of dyers

It looks as though "Fashion Art Resists" must be yet another water-soluble resist. It is not batik wax. The MSDS [PDF] says that it is a "Water-Based Adhesive". The problem with these resists is that they WILL wash off in water. (It was so disappointing, the time I learned this for myself! I was using DEKA silk paint resist.) So, you must not presoak your socks in soda ash. However, it IS possible to use a water-soluble resist with fiber reactive dyes.

What you will need to do is apply your resist, let it dry, then paint the dye on carefully, instead of flooding on huge quantities of dye as you might in tie-dyeing. You may need to apply the dye carefully so that you don't wash off the resist. Much more importantly, you will need to mix the soda ash fixative with the dye itself, because any water-soluble resist will start to come off when soaked for fifteen minutes in a bucket of soda ash mixture. Are you using Tulip dyes along with your Tulip Fashion Dye Resist? I believe that their tie-dye dyes come with soda ash already in the bottle, so that you don't have to presoak, but check the instructions to be sure that there's no separate soda ash presoak.

The trouble with socks is that most of them are so thick that you generally do want to flood them with dye, so that you don't end up with a lot of white. I'm not sure that this water-soluble resist is quite the right thing for your sock resist project. It will work well when used for painting a thin fabric that's been stretched out first, but will it work well on socks? Perhaps it will. It is certainly worth a try, especially since socks are a small, inexpensive, easy project. In any case, be sure to apply the resist on both the inside and the outside of the same spot on your socks, so that it gets right through the fabric, and let it dry absolutely thoroughly before adding dye. Follow the instructions [PDF].

The most effective alternative for use as a resist is batik wax. If you try the Fashion Dye Resist and have a failure, then you will want to consider real wax. It's more trouble to use than Tulip Fashion Dye Resist, because you have to melt it, but it will not dissolve nearly so easily in the dye. Then it's more trouble to get the wax out, of course, since you have to place it in boiling water, let the wax come to the top, and then let the wax cool and solidify before you remove your dyed items from the wax melting-out pot. Try the water-soluble resist first, since it's so easy to wash out. It may be similar to Elmer's Washable Blue Glue Gel, which works pretty well.

Please let us know what you think of this resist product, after you've tried it.

Paula