I think it's probably safe to say we no longer need to mention RIT dye

Name: Garron

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Country or region: California

Message: With all due respect to newer dyes, I think it's probably safe to say we no longer need to mention RIT, it's positively the most pathetic excuse of powder in a box.....insult to call it dye, stain maybe more accurate. I've used hundreds of boxes until I found Procion.

I absolutely agree that all-purpose dye is a poor dye for most purposes, and yet you wouldn't believe how much mail I get from people who are having problems because they used it! People write because the color washes out, or because it runs in the laundry and ruins their other clothing, or because they didn't wash it after dyeing so it's rubbing off onto other things. Many people assume that Rit is the only brand of dye there is, since it has long been sold in grocery stores and pharmacies, so they don't even look for another dye that is more appropriate for their purposes.

People are often surprised to learn that all-purpose dyes are much more expensive to use than fiber reactive dyes. As shown in the comparison of dye costs chart in a post I made to the Dye Forum, it costs about $1.85 to dye one pound of cotton to a pale to medium shade with Rit All-Purpose dye, while it costs as little as 40¢ a pound to obtain a medium shade with Procion MX dyes—which last through at least twenty times as many launderings, likely many more, and without the need for the bother of hand-washing, and without the damage caused by dye bleeding onto other garments that are washed at the same time. Plus, there is no need to invest in a five-gallon cooking pot to use cool water fiber reactive dyes, which are used at room temperature, but all-purpose dye requires this considerable investment—and one should not plan to reuse a dyeing pot for cooking food.

I also get letters from people who use much worse dyes, such as beets, assuming that because something is a lovely red color it has to make a good dye, when in fact the best you are likely to get from beets is a dirty beige. (See, for example, my blog entry on problems in dyeing with beets.) Some of the "dyes" that people write to me about using make all-purpose dye look good by comparison.

In favor of all-purpose dye, it can be the best solution for dyeing garments that are made of both nylon and cotton, sewn together, when what's wanted is the same color on both parts. While it is possible to use Procion MX dye to color both nylon and cotton, doing so requires a two-step process, with soda ash or another base as the auxiliary chemical for the cotton in the first step, and acid as the auxiliary chemical for the nylon in the second step, with enough washing to neutralize the pH in between the two steps. Sometimes a single-step process is preferable, and for pre-mixed colors the all-purpose dye may even make it easier to get the two fibers to match in color after dyeing.

All-purpose dye is a bad choice for multi-color tie-dyeing, or any sort of dyeing in which more than one color of dye is applied to a single piece, because of the way the dye runs and bleeds in the first wash, spoiling the brightness of the colors in the design.

However, for a single-color piece, the washfastness problem can be solved by using Retayne or another commercial cationic dye fixative. Of course, that can be harder to locate than a decent fiber reactive dye. Many crafts stores carry one brand of fiber reactive dye, either Dylon or Tulip, in addition to the excellent Jacquard Products brand of tie-dye kit, but few carry Retayne.

A serious dyer will rarely find a situation in which all-purpose dye is the right choice, but sometimes it does happen.

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Posted: Saturday - July 02, 2011 at 08:23 AM

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I think it's probably safe to say we no longer need to mention RIT dye

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