Name: Mary

Message: Can I use a 50% cotton and 50% polyester?
Thanks for your help!

If you try to dye anything that is 50% cotton and 50% polyester, you will end up with a pastel color, since only half of the fibers will take the dye.

If you happen to have an item that is 50% cotton, you can go ahead and dye it with fiber reactive dye such as Procion MX dye, or with a good tie-dye kit. Even a tie-dye with pale colors can be worthwhile. Beware of using red to dye something that's only 50% cotton for a boy who's phobic about wearing pink. In that case, it's best to stick to blues, greens, and yellows.

If you are going to be dyeing something that you want to have bright colors, or any complex dyeing project, you should buy clothing or fabric that is 100% natural fibers, such as cotton, rayon, hemp, bamboo, or silk. Avoid anything that has been treated to make it stain-resistant, water-repellant, or permanent-press.

You can tie-dye polyester by using fabric paint instead of dye. Good fabric paints to use for this purpose would be Dharma Pigment Dye, which you can order from Dharma Trading Company, or Dye-na-Flow fabric paint, made by Jacquard. The results will be a little different from using dyes on cotton.


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