Where can I get that quality dye for the best price?

Name: Mark

Country or region: Ithaca NY

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Message: I dig the colors and have been trying to dye some of my own work... I've been using rit dye and can't get the bright colors I'd like. I'm looking for a nice kit so I can produce stuff like the one you did with the star mandala, but being a broke college kid, I was looking for a retailer where I can get that quality dye for the best price? But like I said... I dig your work man! peace and love

Two questions here: price and quality. Fortunately, the very best and brightest dyes I can recommend to you are among the cheapest, too, at least in the US.

Take a look at my Dye Forum post entitled "comparison of dye costs". It's dated February 2008, but prices have not changed much.

To buy enough dye to color one pound of fabric (or loose fiber) costs about $2.29, if you're using Rit all-purpose dye powder, or around $1.86 if you're using Rit all-purpose liquid. Plus, like any all-purpose dye, Rit dye fades quickly in the laundry, so you don't get all that very many wearings from it, and it's likely to ruin your other clothes if you foolishly wash them together.

A far better dye for tie-dyeing is fiber reactive dye. The cheapest and most popular fiber reactive dye is called Procion MX. It stays bright for years when fixed with washing soda or soda ash, so one round of dyeing with Procion MX is worth far more than a similar round of dyeing with all-purpose dye. As a bonus, you don't risk ruining any other clothes you wash with it, so there's no added cost there (assuming you wash out all the unattached excess dye first). Fiber reactive dye is an absolute must for the brilliant multi-colored tie-dye art that is popular today.

Look back at my "comparison of dye costs" table again. Three of the most economical sources for Procion MX dye are PRO Chemical & Dye, Dharma Trading Company, and Best Dyes (also know as Grateful Dyes or Colorado Wholesale). To buy enough dye to color one pound of fabric, if you buy two-ounce jars (much cheaper in the long run than the tiny boxes), costs approximately 56¢ at Dharma or Best Dyes and 65¢ at ProChem. That's less than a third as much as the all-purpose dye you've been using, and yet the colors are incredibly brighter and stay bright on your clothing for years longer! For an even better deal, if you do a lot of dyeing, purchase your dyes in eight-ounce jars, which will reduce your cost-per-shirt still further, to around 40¢ per pound of fabric you dye. Don't forget to order soda ash, plastic squirt bottles, latex or non-latex gloves, and a cheap dust mask for when you're measuring out dye powders; urea is also a good ingredient to use in tie-dyeing, though it is optional. A waxed polyester string called artificial sinew is better for tying intricate designs like mandalas than rubber bands are.

The vast majority of serious dyers buy their dyes from mail-order companies such as the three I mentioned. Mail-order companies provide the best prices and the widest selection of products, and their dyes are often much fresher than those you find in a local shop. If you don't like to use a credit card, you can place an order by phone or on the website, and then mail in a check or money order to pay for it.

You'll have a hundred different choices for what colors to buy. You don't need all those colors to start with. The most basic colors for bright dyeing are red MX-8B (fuchsia), turquoise MX-G (turquoise), yellow MX-8G (lemon yellow or sun yellow), and a black mixture such as Black MX-CWNA. You can mix a great many different colors with just those four, and they will give you the brightest colors. If you have a little more money, also buy a jar each of violet MX-2R (grape), one of the navies (blue MX-2G is a good choice and readily available), orange MX-2R, and a 2-ounce jar of a premixed dye color in whatever is your favorite color. Note that there is a shelf life for these dyes; buy only as much as you will use up within two years, and store them with the lids on tight, in a reasonably cool, dry place.

Here are some pages with more information that you'll want to read:

You'll probably also want to browse through my listing of

Frequently Asked Questions About Dyeing.

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Posted: Monday - October 25, 2010 at 07:21 AM

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Where can I get that quality dye for the best price?

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