Message: I have a dress that is polyester it is a blood red and I would like it to be any color darker plum blue brown black, anything darker, and it doesn't have to be uniformly died, I wouldn't mind a shaded look I know that you said you cant dye a dryclean only dress and polyester is super hard to do. I'm getting the dress hemmed to cocktail length from full and was gonna see what I can test out on the xtra fab. i was thinking maybe some bleach then a dye any siggestions besides don't do it or impossible ha ha ha?

Don't ever bleach polyester. Chlorine bleach will permanently damage polyester, causing a yellowing of the color that cannot be removed.

Before you try to do anything else to this dress, wash it. If it survives the washing without damage, you can try dyeing it. If not, it's not dyeable anyway. Always prewash before trying to dye anything.

You can try removing the existing color with Rit Color Remover. This will work best on the stovetop, but it can also be used in a washing machine with very hot water (you might need to turn up the temperature on your water heater). Closely follow the instructions included with the Rit Color Remover. Some dyes will come right out, while some other dyes will be completely untouched; you can't predict what kind of dye is in your dress until you try it.

To dye polyester, you must boil it with a special polyester dye for half an hour or longer, in a very large non-aluminum cooking pot on the stove. Since fabric dyes can contaminate food, you should save this cooking pot for dye use only in the future; never reuse a dyepot for cooking food. The pot must be large enough to permit the fabric to move freely, and you must stir frequently, or you will get streaky or blotchy results. If uneven color results are what you want, you can use a less enormous pot and less stirring, but boiling is still essential to get the dye to stick to the polyester.

You cannot dye polyester with Rit dye or Procion dye. The only dye that will work for polyester is a special kind of dye called disperse dye. One brand of disperse dye is "iDye Poly". Don't get regular iDye, which is for natural fibers; only iDye Poly will work.

The dye will cost about $3; the pot to boil it in will cost something like $100. It may be less expensive to buy a new dress, unless you're planning to use hot water dyes on another project in the future.

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