My regular suppliers have all discontinued Procion H dyes. I AM FRANTIC! Do you have another source for this dye?

Name: Constance

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Message: My regular suppliers (i.e. Prochem, Dharma, Rupert Gibbon) have all discontinued Procion H dyes. I AM FRANTIC ! Do you have another source for this dye?

Many former users of Procion H dyes have switched to Remazol fiber reactive dyes, the vinyl sulfones, which are sold by ProChem as Liquid Reactive Dyes and by Dharma and other retailers of Rupert Gibbon and Spider products as Jacquard Vinyl Sulphon dyes. However, if you really don't want to switch dye types, there are two extremes that I can suggest as sources of Procion H and HE dyes.

One is G&S Dye, in Toronto, which sells small jars of many different colors of Procion H and HE dyes in liquid form, pre-mixed with all needed auxiliary chemicals for silk  painting. G&S is a company aimed at the hand dyer, so they are easy to deal with. They carry an incredible 97 different colors mixed from a dozen or so different Procion H and HE dyes.

The other is a more industrially oriented supplier, Standard Dyes in High Point, North Carolina, which sells Procion H and HE dye powder, suitable for use in dyeing both silk and any plant fiber, such as cotton or rayon, depending on the recipe you follow. They sell dyes with a minimum order of one pound per color; they do not sell premixed colors, so you would have to mix your own. The powdered dyes from Standard are usually available at lower prices per pound than you've paid in the past, and certainly cost less per gram of Procion H dye than G&S's Procion H dyes do, but the minimum size makes an order more expensive than buying the smaller jars from your former suppliers.

My experience with Standard has been that they may substitute a mixed color of a similar hue unless you are careful to specify that you want a certain Colour Index Name (the generic name as listed in a publication called The Colour Index). Here is a table indicating probable equivalents from Standard for Prochem's old Procion H and HE dyes:

ProChem	Colour Index name	Standard Dyes
Pro H-E6G Sun Yellow	reactive yellow 135	Permabril Yellow HE-6G
Pro H-E4R Gold Yellow	reactive yellow 84	Permabril Yellow HE-4R
Pro H-ER Real orange	reactive orange 84	Permabril Orange HER
Pro H-E3B Basic Red	reactive red 120	Permabril Red HE3B
Pro H-E7B Fuchsia	reactive red 141	Permabril Red HE-7B
Pro H-ERD Bright Blue	reactive blue 160	Permabril Blue HERD
Pro H-EGN Basic Blue	reactive blue 198	Permabril Blue HEGN 125%
Pro H-A turquoise	reactive blue 71	Permabril Turquoise HA
Pro H-E4BD Forest Green	reactive green 19	Permabril Green HE-4BD
Pro H-ERN Full Navy	reactive blue 171	Permabril Navy HER 150%

There are many different Procion H and HE dyes for each basic color; it happens that, in many cases, G&S doesn't choose the exact same dyes as ProChem did. The ones that contain the same dye, and no other dyes, are reactive blue 234, which ProChem sold as Pro H-5R Reddish Blue and G&S lists as P555 Blue; reactive blue 171, which G&S lists as P570 Indigo; reactive blue 71, which G&S lists as P500 Turquoise; and reactive brown 17, which G&S lists as P730 Brown.

Please let me know, if you decide to order these dyes, how it works out for you. I have never ordered Procion H or HE dyes from either Standard or G&S. Standard still shows these dyes on their web site, so I would assume that they do still carry them; on the other hand, the fact that ProChem no longer sells them may indicate a problem with accessing supply, so we can't be sure until you contact Standard. I do believe that G&S plans to continue selling their Procion H dyes.

For more information, see my page about Procion H and HE dyes. Contact information for both G&S Dye and Standard Dye are listed on my page. "Sources for Dyeing Supplies Around the World".

UPDATE: Maiwa Handprints, in Vancouver, is selling Procion H liquid dye which appears to be the same highly concentrated no-auxiliaries formula that ProChem used to sell, suitable for both plant and animal fibers.

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