community of dyers

It's very important to follow a good set of instructions precisely! Bad results are likely if you don't. There are links to various good recipes on my page, "How can I dye clothing or fabric in the washing machine?". Pick one recipe for fiber reactive dyes and cotton. Dharma's recipe is good, and, in fact, you can omit one thing from the recipe, Calsolene Oil, and still get good results, but be careful to otherwise follow the recipe exactly as written.

You may have added the soda ash too early. Don't add any soda ash until after the dye has penetrated the fabric. Soda ash will allow the water to react directly with the dye; this hydrolyzed dye will stay in the fabric only temporarily. This is the most likely cause of your problem.

Salt is cheap. You need about twenty cups of salt for one full twenty gallon top-loading washing machine load, or about ten pounds. They say to buy noniodized salt if you can, but iodized salt works well, too. I usually use pickling salt. If you use kosher salt, use more if you're measuring by volume, because there are more cups to the pound.

Other possible causes of your problem:

• the pants might not be 100% cotton; polyester will not dye.
• the pants might be stain-resistant or permanent press, or treated with a non-pilling finish; each of these finishes will repel dye, with stain-resistance being the worst.
• you might be using bleach: don't. If your municipal water supply is extremely high in chlorine, use Anti-Chlor in the rinse every time you wash your clothes.
• your dye might be old; Procion MX dye lasts for a year or two, sometimes longer, when stored correctly, but goes bad quickly if stored in a hot place
• if your clothing has been treated with starch, the dye will react with the starch and gradually wash out as the starch does.

Don't use Retayne. If you use fiber reactive dye with the correct recipe and the correct fabric, you will not need it. Retayne is to be used only for non-washfast dyes, or when water shortages are too acute to allow proper rinsing. However, Retayne and similar fixatives make the dye more susceptible to fading from the light, so in some cases they can make your clothing fade more quickly, rather than making the dye last longer. If you use Retayne, dry and store the treated clothing in the dark, no line-drying out-of-doors.

Used correctly, Procion MX dyes will persist through far more than ten launderings.

Paula