Message: Hi, I love your website, it's so informative! I have a couch that I bought from someone who said it's ultrasuede. I had only heard of microsuede before, and assume it's similar. It's a very light grey color, and I'd love to dye it darker, as my dog's foot prints really show. All of the fabric comes off the couch, including the arms and back fabric. Can I dye this successfully with something, or am I out of luck? I'm only looking to dye it a grey/teal color. Thanks so much! Lisa

Ultrasuede® is a brand name of a synthetic suede-like fabric which is made of polyester microfiber. Microsuede is a generic term for the same material.

Unfortunately, polyester is a difficult fiber to dye. It cannot be dyed with ordinary fabric dyes that work on natural fibers, and it cannot be dyed without boiling it. In order to dye your couch cover, you would have to buy a very large stainless steel or enamel cooking pot, large enough for the fabric to move freely in, and some of the special dye for polyester, which is called disperse dye.

Buying the dye for polyester is not difficult, if you are willing to order it by mail. You can order Disperse Dye from PRO Chemical & Dye or Aljo Dyes. You can also buy a new brand of disperse dye, called "iDye Poly", from Blick Art Materials or Dharma Trading Company. The problem is buying the cooking pot. You must never again use a cooking pot for food preparation after it has been used for dyeing fabric, because textile dyes will contaminate food. This means that obtaining the pot is a large investment if you are not going to be using hot water dyes again in the future. If, on the other hand, you do plan to do more hot-water dyeing, a good dyeing pot is an excellent investment. Stainless steel pots are the best choice, because they do not chip like enamel, and they don't change the color of the dye as aluminum or iron pots may.

There is, fortunately, an alternative to dyeing. You can use fabric paint. Use only fabric paints whose manufacturers claim that they will work on polyester, as some fabric paints will not stick well to synthetic fibers. It is best to remove the fabric from the couch before applying the fabric paint, because you must rinse the fabric after you paint it, and because it will dry better on a line, and because it is not good for upholstered furniture to be soaked with water. You can use any Jacquard Products fabric paint, such as Dye-na-Flow, or you can use a spray fabric paint specifically made for upholstery, called Simply Spray. Since you can remove your couch's covers, I think that my preference would be to use Dharma Trading Company's Dharma Pigment Dyes system, which is a fabric paint that can be used on polyester (as well as on other fibers); they say that it does not require heat-setting when used on polyester. No fabric paint will work well at producing a perfectly smooth single shade, but they can work very well for making a slightly more complex design which includes darker and lighter shades. You can also consider stamping a pattern onto the fabric with fabric paints. 

For more information, see: 
"Fabric Paints: a different way to color fibers"
"How to dye polyester"
"Can furniture be dyed successfully?"
"Scarlet Zebra's Instructions for Painting Upholstered Furniture"

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