Name: Jenn
Message: Hello I hope you can help me. I dyed a beige dress yesterday (50% polyester, 40%linen 10% rayon) using a Jacquard tie dying kit. I wanted to dye it an orangy-brown. I mixed red with yellow and let the dye sit over night and rinsed it out this morning. It was the colour I wanted until I washed the dress and it turned more yellowy. I need it darker. Can I just re-dye it? any help would be great! Thank you.

The polyester will not dye at all, unless you buy an unpleasant special dye made just for polyester, and boil the garment in it for an hour - but that would probably destroy the dress, so I doubt you want to try that. There may also be a wrinkle-resistant coating on the fabric, which will make it more difficult for dye to reach the fiber. Sometimes, it can be very frustrating to dye a dress that is not sold as PFD (prepared for dyeing). Other times, it happens to work well. You just have to try it.

You can redye, as the linen and rayon will probably take up more dye on the second go-around. Mix the dye up more concentrated than you would use for 100% cellulose. (Rayon, cotton, and linen are all different forms of cellulose fiber.) If the dress is an unwearable color now, it's worth trying. Don't forget the soda ash.

Normally, dye looks much darker when wet than it will look after the fabric has been washed out and dried. You must obtain a darker color than you like, while the garment is wet, in order to obtain the color that you want after washing and drying. This is doubly true when the fabric is 50% polyester, because the polyester will look dyed when it is only temporarily stained, and will turn back to the original color when washed out.