Name: Dianna

Message: Hello,

I have a swimming suit that is white and unlined, and thus transparent in the worst places. The suit fits very well, and I'd like to dye it a dark color (black or dark blue) so that I can wear it. 

The fabric is 80% nylon, 20% spandex. Will an acid dye work? What brand do you suggest? Do you recommend stove top or washing machine? It seems wasteful to use the washing machine for such a small amount of fabric. 

The problem with dyeing nylon/spandex is that acid dye is a hot water dye, ideally used on nylon at around 185°F, while spandex is apt to lose its shape at anything above the temperature indicated on the care label, typically 105°F. (While acid dye is used industrially at 160°F to dye spandex, these high temperatures are probably suitable only to spandex fibers that have not yet been made into garments.) You have two choices: use an acid dye at 105°F, accepting that it will not be nearly as washfast as acid dye that has been applied at a higher temperature—you could reapply dye when it is needed again—or use fabric paint, instead of dye.

Fabric paint is a combination of a colored pigment and a binder that glues it to the fiber. There are many different types and textures available. For your swimming suit, I would recommend against any 'dimensional' paint that you can easily feel on the fabric. Crafts stores commonly carry slick paint, puffy paint, or other textured paints; I do not recommend these. A softer, thinner fabric paint that does not change the 'feel' of the fabric, or even a fabric paint that spreads on the fabric like dye, would be more suitable. Fabric paint may wear off of the nylon somewhat faster than it would wear off of a natural fiber, and it, like dye, might be repelled by surface fabric finishes, but it's definitely worth a try.

Lumiere is a good brand of fabric paint that comes in many different metallic and pearlescent colors. This would be nice by itself or as an accent applied after other, darker colors. Jacquard Textile Colors and PRO Chemical & Dye's PROfab Textile paints are good, as are SetaColor and SetaSilk. Jacquard's Dye-na-flow is a fabric paint that looks a lot like a dye, as it flows freely on the fabric like dye before drying and being set. Many fabric paints have instructions saying to heat-set, but often just holding the garment unwashed for a month after painting will substitute for the heat-setting step. Dharma Pigment "dyes" are a fabric paint which is used for tie-dyeing synthetic fibers. (See the notes on their page.)

You can also buy easily dyeable white cotton/lycra swimsuits from Dharma Trading Company for about $13, if you want to start over from scratch.

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Name: Tracy

Message: I have large living room and dining room drapes, they are an off white color and I would like to dye them.  Is it possible.  They are custom made and cost a pretty penny.  My husband will just have a heart attack if I ruin them.  Can you help or point me in the direction I can go to find someone who can do this for me?

I have no idea about your drapes, sorry, since I don't know what they are made of, or whether they are washable. It makes a huge difference what fiber they are made of—are they polyester, cotton, nylon, or what?—and you can never dye anything that cannot be washed.

When choosing a dye for a project, you must choose the right type of dye for your fiber. You can't have any idea of what dye to choose if you don't know what your drapes are made of. Commercial dyers (see my listing to Find a Custom Dyer ) will not want to dye your drapes if the drapes are not made from natural fibers.

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Name: Sally
Message: Hi,
I am trying to dye a 100% cotton sweater from white to red.  I was told that to not shock the fibers and shrink the sweater I need to slowly raise the temperature of the dye bath and slowly cool it off.  Is this true, and would I heat the dye bath to dissolve the dye then cool it and put the sweater in and then heat it up again slowly? Thanks!

No. Although gradual changes in temperature may be less risky than sudden changes, what you should do is use a cool water dye, and avoid using a hot dyebath altogether. There is no reason to use a hot water dye on a cotton sweater when cool water dyes give better results and allow you to avoid the risk of shrinkage altogether.

Do not use a hot water dye such as Rit brand all-purpose dye on a cotton sweater. Instead, mail-order some cool water fiber reactive dye, such as Procion MX dye. There are many different retail sources from which you can order your Procion MX dye; see my list of Sources for Dyeing Supplies Around the World, or you can order through Amazon using my Color Chart for Buying Procion MX Dyes through Amazon. You will also need soda ash and salt for immersion-dyeing your sweater with this type of dye, which you can do in a large bucket, rather than a washing machine, if you prefer. Procion MX type dyes will work at 70°F (21°C) or above.

Although hot water is best for the washing-out stage of removing excess unattached reactive dye from fiber, after the dyeing process is complete, you will of course still want to avoid its use. Wash several times in lukewarm water so as not to shrink the cotton, leaving it to soak for a while at some point in the process, and then in the future wash separately from other colors until all excess unattached dye has been removed. This takes much longer in cool water than in hot water. The final result will be much longer-lasting and brighter in color if you use fiber-reactive dyes instead of inferior all-purpose dyes.


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Name: Marija
Message: Dear Madam,
please give me recipe how to get turquoise shade only from natural dyes. Which mordant I have to use?

The best way to obtain a turquoise color with natural dyes is by a two-step process, combining blue and yellow dyes. Equal intensities of blue and yellow would produce green, but an intense blue followed by a sufficiently pale yellow will produce turquoise.

First you should dye your fiber blue, using indigo. Indigo must be used before your yellow dye, because the mordants required for yellow dyes may interfere with level dyeing of indigo. Indigo requires no mordant at all, but the chemistry of dyeing with indigo is complex. You must produce a reducing vat in order to dye with indigo. The old traditional method was to create a fermentation vat using stale urine. More popular these days are a natural fermentation dyebath with bran, or a thiourea dioxide/lye dyebath, or a zinc/lime dye bath. If you are not already familiar with indigo dyeing, I would advise you to find a book on the subject, rather than relying on the more limited information available on the internet. Keep in mind that it is better to dip your fiber repeatedly in a relatively weak indigo dyebath, to get an intense blue, than to dip once in a very concentrated bath, as the latter often leads to big problems with crocking (rubbing off of dry dye).

There are many different natural dyes that can be used to dye yellow. Many weeds produce yellow dyes and can be used with alum, which is the safest of the mordants. Unfortunately, most yellow natural dyes tend to fade in the light. The spice turmeric can be used with no mordant at all, being a natural direct dye, but tends to fade and must be redyed every year or so, depending on light exposure. Two much more light-fast natural dyes are weld and quercitron (the latter being from the inner bark of the American black oak tree). 


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Name: christephanie

Message: Hi, am a university student @ the University of Mauritius (Bsc Textile and fashion Design) and have to submit a project by 20th Feb on Natural dyes. I have chosen to dye a cotton fabric using Mud (the three type of soil are available here) dyeing as an experiment with the aim of putting forward its ecological advantages and quality though not as good as synthetic dye. The problem is that I dont know how to proceed at all and would gladly welcome any hints for a successful operation.

I'd suggest you get your fabric today, some 100% natural fiber that is not treated with any sort of stain-resistant or permanent-press finish, wash it well in hot water with detergent and soda ash to remove any sizing or grease spots, then bury each of three pieces in a quantity of each of your three muds. If you do this now, you might be able to see some differences when you dig them out and rinse them out in cold water, after a week or so. Time might be an important element here, which is why I'm suggesting you start this little experiment immediately (and why I'm not mulling over your message for at least a week before answering).

Chemical auxiliaries such as vinegar or soda ash are unlikely to help, but you could always test this as part of your project if you wish. Pre-mordanting by boiling your cotton in alum for half an hour, then tannin for half an hour, then alum again, might be quite helpful. I can't tell you for sure, because I've never tried mud dyeing myself. Tannic acid itself, if gotten into the fabric in high enough concentrations, can complex with the iron in the mud to create an unexpectedly black color. This is the basis for African mud cloth dyeing, which is a long and laborious process. Tannic acid can be found in many plants, such as the galls of oak trees, the barks of some trees, pomegranate rinds, and black tea, and can be extracted into water by chopping the material finely then boiling for some time. It can also be purchased from natural dyes suppliers and from shops that supply wine brewers. If you don't know how much to use, and don't know the percent tannic acid content of whatever you use as a source for it, you will just have to do some trial and error to try to decide how much tannic acid is a good amount. (I would love to find out what you decide afterwards.)

As far as less practical suggestions are concerned, using a clear colorless fabric paint as a binder for the mud pigment would result in much superior results as compared to simple mud dyeing, more intense in color and far longer-lasting, but the results would certainly not be 'natural', since the clear fabric paint binders contain acrylics. There is an old tradition in Japan of using soy milk as an all-natural binder for pigments on fabric. You can still do this today, though I must warn you that you would have to make your own fresh soy milk; the soy milk we can buy in the grocery store is evidently no good at all for use as a binder in fabric painting. The company Table Rock Llamas, which has an online store, takes a lot of the guesswork and trial and error out of this process by selling a soy milk kit plus all manner of earth oxides from around the world, in many different colors, for use in painting the fabric that's been treated with the soy milk binder. You can use locally available soybeans to make your own soymilk, if you choose to go this route, and use your local mud for color. This technique should produce superior results, albeit at the cost of far, far more hours of work than would be required to use modern synthetic materials.

Mud dyeing, as a rule, produces pale brown or reddish brown shades that fade in the laundry, ultimately leaving you with only a pale iron buff color. It's not something you could really call a successful dye. A successful dye should not wash out in the laundry. You cannot make a good argument that mud dyeing has any 'quality' advantages over more effective dyes. It's more of a fun idea than a practical way to dye anything. However, the success of African mud cloth suggests that using large amounts of tannic acid might be a way to make mud dyeing much more practical.

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Name: urniez

Message: Sorry I just gone through your web site. I really need your help. 

I need to dye a 100% cotton tee shirt. What paint should I use and what chemical to mix with?? Could I straight away order from you??

Don't use paint, use dye instead. Paint sticks to the surface, whereas dye bonds throughout the fiber and does not rub off with wear.

The best dye for cotton is any of several different fiber reactive dyes. I do not recommend the use of all-purpose dyes, such as Rit brand dye, on cotton. Cool water fiber reactive dyes, such as Procion MX dyes,  last much longer, give much better results, and are much easier to apply than all-purpose dyes. 

Most fiber reactive dyes are set with a high pH. The safest and easiest-to-use pH increaser is soda ash, or sodium cabonate. Do not use baking soda, or sodium bicarbonate, because it does not produce a high enough pH. For good recipes for dyeing with fiber reactive dye on cotton, see:
1. Hand Dyeing - How to Do It: basic recipe for Procion MX dyes on cellulose or silk
2. How to Tie Dye - Complete Instructions and
3. How to Batik.

You can mail-order good fiber reactive dyes, such as Procion MX dye, from most of the retailers listed on my page of Sources for Dyeing Supplies Around the World, or you can order from Amazon.com using my Color Chart for Buying Procion MX Dyes through Amazon.

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Name: Juliet
Message: What colorfastness test closely relates to body staining? If I have very low colorfastness rating, does it mean the colorant will most likely to adhere on the skin of wearer? 

Yes, but even relatively poorly washfast dyes, when properly applied, should not stain the skin of the wearer. When dye transfers from the clothing to the wearer, the problem is usually that the dye was either applied wrong, or excess dye was not washed out afterwards as it should have been. Dyes that are so poorly washfast as to commonly rub off are not often recommended for use on clothing. Even the worst dyes we see in our lists of colorfastness are better than many dyes we've never heard of.

Crocking is what it is called when dry dye rubs off onto things or people. Dye that crocks is usually loosely adhering to the outside of the fiber, instead of being properly attached to the fiber molecules themselves.

Crocking is a common fault for improperly applied vat dyes such as indigo, especially when it is dyed by novices that have not yet mastered the technique. Indigo is soluble when in the dye vat, and can then penetrate the fiber, but becomes insoluble immediately upon exposure to air. The way to properly dye a deep indigo is not to prepare an extra-strong indigo bath, but instead to use a fairly weak dyebath and dip the fiber repeatedly. It is not unusual to dip a single length of fabric or yarn into the indigo dyebath twenty times, for a lovely intense color that does not rub off.

Crocking is also seen when a novice dyer applies all-purpose dye or fiber reactive dye, but skips the essential step of washing out unattached dyes afterwards. Dye must never be used in any application in which thorough washing afterwards is not possible. An example would be painting Rit dye onto a couch and letting it dry. The excess dye will rub off and ruin the clothing of people who sit upon it. Fiber reactive dyes, such as Procion MX dye, must be washed several times, preferably in the hottest of water, in order to remove the excess unattached dye, leaving behind on the fabric only the strongly-bonded molecules of permanent dye.

When a poorly washfast dye, such as Rit all-purpose dye, is used on clothing, washing excess dye out afterwards should prevent crocking. However, washfastness will remain poor even after this essential washing step, if the dye is from a poorly washfast group of dyes, such as all-purpose dye or direct dye. The only solution to this problem, other than starting with a superior dye to begin with, instead, is to apply a commercial dye fixative, such as Retayne. These cationic dye fixatives are attracted to the dye molecule and help to stick it in place in the fiber. Unfortunately, they work only on dyes which have a negative charge, which means that they cannot be expected to help with vat dyes such as indigo, nor with a class of dyes called basic dyes which is rarely used at home. Cationic dye fixatives cannot be purchased from most crafts stores, except for some very good quilting supply stores, and usually must be mail-ordered from a good dye supplier such as the ones listed on my page of Sources for Dyeing Supplies Around the World.

Crocking dye on clothing or furniture is considered a manufacturing defect and should be returned to the seller.

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Name: Rehana

Message: Hello,

I have a brown peacoat that I bought from Express way back in 2002.  I still love this coat, but hate the color.  I think peacoats are wool.  

How can I dye it pink? 

The inside of the coat is not wool... it is a smoother silkier material.

Sorry, but this is project is not practical.

Pink is a much lighter color than brown. Since dye is transparent, it cannot make your existing clothing lighter, only darker. The only color you could dye a coat that is a medium or dark brown would be black.

To lighten the color of clothing, you must discharge the existing dye by treating it with a color-removing chemical. This is a chancy procedure and often fails to give good results even on the easiest fabrics to work with, but your fabric is one that is very hard to discharge. There are different discharge chemicals available, starting with ordinary household chlorine bleach, but none will do the job for your brown coat. Chlorine bleach will destroy wool and synthetic fibers, so that's out of the question. In industry, hydrogen peroxide is used to bleach wool (see ProChem's recipe), but the method is unlikely to produce desirable results on already-sewn garments, especially for a novice such as yourself. Rit Color Remover is an excellent product for removing color from cotton, but the heat it requires would almost certainly shrink your wool coat.

Your coat might not even be made of wool. Peacoats can be made with synthetic fibers, as well, such as acrylic. Unfortunately, these synthetics are even more impossible than wool to bleach and dye satisfactorily. The lining of your coat is probably acetate, by the way, a fiber which is quite difficult to dye. 

I'm afraid that your best alternatives are to either decide to accept the coat the way it is, or sell it at a resale shop and find another coat that you like better.

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Name: TJ
Message: hello, i am not sure if you would be able to help or atleast point me in the right direction. i am trying to figure out how to dye t-shirts and get them to turn out looking something like the following images.  i cant seem to get anything close to the first two images, but the last one i have found one way that works watering down fabric paint and spraying it onto the shirt. but if you can point me in the right direction or anything that would be a huge help.

thank you for your time and hope to hear form you soon.

T.J.

http://www.afflictionclothing.com/pictures/Code_Khaki_Tee.jpg
http://www.afflictionclothing.com/pictures/Poe_Charc.jpg
http://www.afflictionclothing.com/pictures/Roses_Tan.jpg

Those look discharged to me. Discharging is the use of bleach or other chemicals to remove or degrade dye. Often the results are less than 100% because many dyes can be removed only partially, or even not at all, and you cannot tell what dye you have in a garment or bolt of fabric until after you try bleaching it. Discharged dye tends to have an aged, imperfect look, just like your examples.

Do not try to discharge garments that are less than 100% cotton, because synthetic fibers (especially polyester or spandex) are badly damaged by chlorine bleach, and polyester dyes are resistant to discharge anyway. If you discharge cotton fabric with chlorine bleach, follow up after rinsing by using a bleach stopping agent such as AntiChlor (sodium metabsulfite), Bleach Stop (sodium thiosulfate), or straight 3% hydrogen peroxide; Anti-Chlor from PRO Chemical & Dye is by far the most economical, because only a small amount is needed. Do not us ean acid such as vinegar to neutralize bleach, because it produces more corrosive and dangerous chemials when it reacts with the bleach. There is more information available about discharge dyeing on my page How to Tie Dye on Dark Fabric. Be careful when using chlorine bleach; it is much more toxic than the dyes we like to use.

An easier alternative would be to use a very dilute solution of a fiber reactive dye, such as Procion MX dye, in a low water immersion dyebath. (I do not recommend All-purpose dye on cotton or synthetic shirts.) Cram the shirt into a small bucket or other container, pour diluted dye onto it until it is not quite covered with the liquid, then add sodium carbonate, as described on my page of How to Do Low Water Immersion Dyeing. Do not poke or stir the garment unless you are trying to get a smoothly colored, even result. Leaving it alone is necessary for the contrast between light and dark areas. You will have to experiment to find just how little dye to use to get your very pale effects. Try chlorine bleach discharge, or discharge with Rit Color Remover, on any that get dyed too dark.

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Name: Julian 
Message: I'm currently working on a science project for school,  and I would like to know: What the science behind the use of color fixatives is and what mordants like sodium carbonate, actually doing to the fabric? 

Sodium carbonate is not a mordant! A mordant is a metal ion which attaches to the fiber, usually by being boiled together for a length of time. A dye which has no natural attraction to the fiber can then attach to the metal ion. Most but not all natural dyes are mordant dyes, which require the metal ion to be in the fiber in order for them to have any attraction to the fiber. There are also some synthetic dyes that are mordant dyes. 

Mordants include alum, chromium, copper, iron, and tin. Some of these metals are quite toxic and hazardous, in addition to be environmentally damaging. Chromium is the most hazardous of mordants. The hexavalent form of chromium called for in some recipes is a known human carcinogen. Alum is the least toxic of the mordants, though it can be irritating and should be used with care.

Tannic acid is another important mordant, a large, complex, metal-free chemical, used mainly in dyeing cellulose fibers, such as cotton. Tannic acid can be obtained from many plant sources, such as the galls on oak trees. A typical recipe for using tannic acid as a mordant calls for boiling cotton first with alum, then tannic acid, then alum again, each in a separate boiling water bath, followed by boiling with the mordant-requiring dye. I think that the alum attaches to the cotton, the tannic acid attaches to the alum, and the dye attaches to either the tannic acid or to another alum ion attached to the tannic acid. This is much more complex, and much less resistant to washing out, then the bonds formed by reacting a modern synthetic fiber reactive dye directly with the fiber.

Most synthetic dyes have no requirement for mordants. Fiber reactive dyes, such as Procion MX dye, have no need whatsoever for a mordant, because they form chemical bonds directly to the fiber. The dyeing process for these other dyes does make use of other chemicals, but not mordants. In some cases a mordant will improve the washfastness of an acid dye on wool, but there is no need to use a mordant with most synthetic acid dyes. 

A low pH is useful for dyeing protein fibers such as wool, and a high pH is useful for dyeing cellulose fibers with reactive dyes. In neither case is this achieved by using a mordant. Instead, pH-adjusting chemicals (which are NOT mordants) are used, such as sodium carbonate or vinegar, though they have opposite effects from each other and are used on different fibers. 

An acid such as vinegar or citric acid is used as an auxiliary chemical to reduce the pH of the dyebath for dyeing with acid dyes, but acid is not in itself a mordant. It is a coincidence that some chemicals that are used as mordants, such as tannic acid, have the word 'acid' in the names; it reflects an unrelated aspect of their chemical structures. Vinegar and citric acid, like sodium carbonate, are not mordants, though people who do not understand dyeing sometimes refer to them as such. Acids work as dye auxiliary chemicals by reducing the pH of the dyebath to allow the protein fibers to ionize, which aids in allowing them to form hydrogen bonds to the dyes.

Sodium carbonate is a chemical that is used to increase the pH of the dye bath. A high pH causes the cellulose molecule to be deprotonated in order to form a cellulosate anion, which then can attack the fiber reactive dye, after which a permanent covalent chemical bond is formed to attach the dye to the fiber. Deprotonating cellulose with a high pH does not work for dyeing cellulose with other classes of dye. There is little or no advantage in using soda ash for another class of dye. Soda ash will not improve the attachment of, for example, an all-purpose dye to cotton.

You can see a drawing of the chemical reaction between a dichlorotriazine dye, Procion Red MX-5B, and a cellulose molecule, on my dyeing Q&A blog entry for May 19, 2005 (click on this link).


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Name: Gareth
Message: Hi, I was wondering...
I would like to dye a garment that has a white screenprint.  When I dye the garment, will the screenprint stay white?  If not, is there any way to achieve this?

If you use a cool water fiber reactive dye, the screenprint will not take the color and will remain white.  Examples of fiber reactive dye include Procion MX dye and Dylon Permanent dye. 

Don't use a hot water dye, such as all-purpose dye, which has a greater chance of staining some plastic materials.

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Name: laura
Message: I have heard that rinsing in vinegar helps set the dye and keep it from running.  Is this true?

No, not at all. Rinsing with vinegar is useless for setting dye. See my discussions on the following two pages: "Is there any way to set dye in purchased clothing or fabric?" and "Commercial Dye Fixatives".

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Name: Khalil-ur-Rehman
Message: Dear sir, How to dye milk protein fiber and which dyes and processing aids are suitable for its process. 

Milk protein fiber, which I have seen commercially marketed as 'Silk Latte', can, like real silk, be dyed with either acid dyes or reactive dyes. However, in neither case does it dye as well as real silk. The colors are very noticeably less intense on milk protein fiber than on real silk. I observed a similar result with soy protein fiber.

I have tested with a leveling acid dye (a food dye), Procion MX reactive dye, and vinyl sulfone reactive dye. I do not know if another acid dye might give superior results; I know that neutral acid dyes are supposed to do less well on soy protein fiber than weak acid dyes do. So far, my best results have come from vinyl sulfone reactive dye, using soda ash as the dye fixative, heated to a simmer for only a minute and then allowed to cool. My experiments have been far from exhaustive, however.

For pictures of one of my very small-scale tests, see the following:
http://www.pburch.net/drupal/?q=node/133

For more information on vinyl sulfone reactive dyes, see:
Vinyl Sulfone Fiber Reactive Dyes

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Name: Barbara
Message: Hi, I am dyeing with dirt and I have read your natural dye page and if I use tea as a mordant do I need to use soda ash as well?  Would I soak the cotton t-shirt in the soda ash first, or add the soda ash to the tea? Thanks 

Soda ash is used for dyeing with reactive dyes, which are synthetic. Since you are not using reactive dyes, there's probably no reason at all for you to use soda ash. Don't bother to use soda ash with any other type of dye besides synthetic reactive dye, unless you have a recipe from an experienced dyer which explicitly says to use it.

I have not tried dyeing with tea and mud, and so I cannot give you a recipe. The mud that you use should contain a high concentration of iron. The tea would be used as a source of tannic acid. Another source of tannic acid, such as the pure tannic acid you can buy from a natural dyes supply house or a wine brewing supplier, might work better since it would be stronger, but if you tea-dye heavily enough, you should be able to get a significant amount of tannic acid on your fabric.

Here is an interesting article about the traditional use of iron-containing mud with tannin-containing plant extracts in Japan:
"Kumejima Pongee: A mordanting technique passed down in the 'home of pongee'"
...and here is one about mud dyeing in Africa:
Mud Cloth - Woven
It appears to be a very slow and painstaking procedure.

On the "Mordants and Metal Dyes" page from "Anne Liese's Fibers and Stuff" website, there are some recipes for dyeing with pure tannic acid and pure ferrous sulfate (known traditionally to dyers as copperas). She recommends boiling them together with your fabric until the desired shade is reached; after a paragraph on producing pale iron buff, adds "alternately, bury your fiber in iron-rich mud for a week or more."

The process of natural dyeing is far more difficult and takes much more time than the use of modern fiber reactive dyes, such as Procion MX dyes. You will need to be patient and persistent. If you want to spend less time and effort on experimenting, I recommend that you consider ordering Kimberly Baxter Packwood's CD ROM video, Rust & Clay Dyeing, at The Prairie Fibers Company. I have not seen this video myself and so cannot provide a review, but I know from reading her posts on various dye-related mailing lists that Ms. Packwood has spent a great deal of time and effort on her experiments with rust and clay dyeing, so her experience might benefit you.

Please let me know the results of your experiments with dyeing with tea and mud.


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Name: Nancy
Message: I have a big bag of wool roving.  I have some powdered dye I bought a long time ago for dyeing muslin to quilt. Yes, I know it requires a different mordant. I think it is that MX type. But I want to cold water dye the roving to use to needle felt onto my tubular knitted bags of different sizes. Just was not satisfied with colors of wool tapestry yarn, I already have, too linear.   I have dyed some yarn but long time ago.  We used zip lock bags and layed them out in the sun to heat them, of course here in Texas in the summertime that was easy to achieve 140 degrees. Also have done some dying with canning jars, but don't have many jars left.  Have used canning steamer outside for ventalation. What is your suggestion? I don't need a lot of any one color, just now.

You do not need any mordant when dyeing with most synthetic dyes. (Mordants are metal ions or tannins.)

You do need to use a different dye assistant with wool than with cotton. Instead of the soda ash used in dyeing cotton, use an acid such as vinegar. You can use Procion MX dyes on wool as well as on cotton, but because the high pH used to dye cotton will damage the wool, you should not use soda ash on wool. When used with vinegar, Procion MX dyes actually perform as acid dyes, rather than as reactive dyes. A special advantage to this technique is that MX dyes that are too old to react with cotton (they stay fresh for only a year or two) will still work fine as acid dyes on wool. It's a good way to use up old MX dye.

Unfortunately, using the MX dyes as acid dyes means that a higher temperature is required, for best results. If it is important to you to use room temperature to dye your wool, there are recipes available to help you, though you are likely to end up with somewhat paler colors. The heat in a plastic bag in the sunlight is better than room temperature, but not as effective as temperatures closer to boiling.  Any bit of warmth you can add to the dye reaction will improve your results. Your colors are likely to be considerably more intense if you heat set by simmering or steaming the wool with the dye, rather than by using plastic bags in the sunlight. 

What you'll probably want to do with your roving is, first, wet it out by presoaking in vinegar and water with a bit of Synthrapol added, then lay it out flat and sprinkle on various colors of whatever powder dye you decide to use. (Be very careful not to breathe any sort of dye powder or other powdered chemical.) Allow the dye to spread on the wet fiber until you like the way it looks. Then, to allow the dye to bond to the fiber, you can wrap your roving in plastic wrap and keep it in a plastic bag in a warm place at least overnight, or you can gently simmer it in a suitable dyeing pot, barely covered in water, or you can steam it, in a covered pot, on a colander or steamer over boiling water, for forty-five minutes. I favor simmering and steaming because they produces the brightest and longest-lasting colors. It is important to avoid handling the wool too much while heating it in order to avoid unwanted felting. Don't reuse your dyeing pot for cooking afterwards, unless you choose to use food coloring as your dye.

For more information on using your old Procion MX dyes on wool, see the following page: 
"Fiber reactive dyes on protein fibers"

For additional information on other dyes for use on wool, see the following:
- "About Acid Dyes"
- "Dyeing Protein Fibers"
- "Using Food Coloring as a Textile Dye for Protein Fibers"
 

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Name: Kate
Message: Hi, I really appreciate your web site so much and because of it I just bought my Batik kit from one of the businesses you listed.  But I have a few questions, I'm really sorry if they are answered on the site, but I looked a bunch and just didn't see them. 
1. After the cloth is done pre-soaking in the soda ash do I rinse it or just let it dry? 
2. If the answer to Q1 is no don't rinse, should I re-pre-soak before every dye. 
3. And lastly, if I don't have any urea how much dye should I dissolve in the H2O.  
Thank You SOOOO much!! 

What kit did you buy?

Leave the soda ash in the fabric for the dyeing step. Don't rinse it out. It's okay to let it line-dry, or just wring it out and use it damp, whichever you prefer. You need the soda ash to be in the fabric when the dye is applied.

Don't get soda ash on your hands for long, because it is irritating to the skin. (Rinse it off if you get it on your skin.) I like to tie the fabric either dry or dampened with plain water, so I don't have to wear gloves when tying. Then I soak it in soda ash. I don't like tying with gloves on, but I like always wearing gloves while handling wet soda ash.

If you wash out your fabric, such as if you dye the same fabric twice, you will have to presoak in soda ash again, since the soda ash will have washed out when you washed the fabric.  There's no harm in doing this. 

For batik, I apply the melted wax to totally dry clean cotton or silk fabric, then soak the fabric in soda ash just until it is thoroughly wet, no more than five minutes. Then I squeeze out the extra soda-ash-water, lay the fabric or shirt out flat, and squirt on the fiber reactive dye, such as Procion MX dye.

You don't have to use urea. Its purpose is to help the fabric stay moist long enough for the dye to react with the fabric. When I use urea it makes no difference to the amount of dye I use. If you are immersion dyeing, you don't need urea at all.

When I directly apply dye to the fabric, I like to mix about two to three teaspoons of Procion MX type dye with every cup of water. If I add urea, I use one tablespoon of it, added to the same cup of water as the dye. Here's the recipe I use: "Hand Dyeing - How to Do It: basic recipe for Procion MX dyes on cellulose or silk".

I hope you have a great time dyeing.


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Name: Penny
Message: I have a large bucket of Sodium Hydrogen Carbonate 100% for swimming pool use.  Can this be used in place of Sodium Carbonate.  It says its a total alkalinity increaser.  Thanks! 

No. Sodium Hydrogen Carbonate is the exact same thing as sodium bicarbonate, or baking soda. Sodium bicarbonate, or sodium hydrogen carbonate, is NaHCO₃, while sodium carbonate is Na₂HCO₃.

For dyeing cellulose fibers with fiber reactive dyes, sodium bicarbonate will not produce a high enough pH at room temperature: the pH you get will probably be around 8, as opposed to about 11 for sodium carbonate (varying by concentration, of course).

You cannot substitute baking soda for sodium carbonate at room temperature, but you can if you extensively heat set, such as by steaming for half an hour or longer, or baking, because it will actually turn into sodium carbonate, given enough time and high heat. This is why baking soda is often used as a dye fixer for steam-set silk dyes.

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There are many different ways you can approach this project.

I do find that iron-on inkjet transfers show wear fairly quickly on children's clothing, though simple black inkjet transfers on a dyed background last through a good many wearings, and they show their wear gracefully, unlike detailed photographs in transfers. Large bold print is better than fine small print. I've been wondering if another brand of inkjet transfer might be more resistant to wear. The iron-ons seem to me to last longer with adults' clothing, probably a combination of taking more care to always launder the clothing inside-out, and simply the fact that adults do not tend to wear the same item of clothing as frequently. Photographic opaque inkjet transfers for dark fabric show wear much more quickly, in my experience. I like to use black writing on a hand-dyed background; see my September 3, 2006 posting on the Dye Forum for pictures of one example.

The easiest way to apply writing to a shirt is with a permanent fabric marker. Markers labeled for use on fabric last longer than Sharpies and other 'permanent' markers not intended for clothing. These can last quite well, if the clothing is not exposed to bleach. (Best to avoid clothing with white backgrounds for babies!) Here are a couple of examples: "Texas wildflowers tee" and "Poison dart frog snap-crotch baby shirt".

A third method is screen-printing with inks intended for screen printing on fabric. This is best for text that you wish to use more than once, of course. Photographic methods for transferring an image to the screen can be used.

I have created a stencil to use with puffy fabric paint; look at my results here:  "Fabric puffy paint with a stencil" (Click on the image to see a close-up.) All fabric paint is more subject to wear than a good fiber reactive dye, but this shirt lasted quite well through many wearings by my sons.

The most permanent methods, however, require the use of dye, preferably fiber reactive dyes, which last a lot better than other kinds of dyes. I really like the effects I've obtained by using a tjanting with melted wax, then dyeing with Procion MX dyes (on 100% cotton shirts). Here's an example I did with the words 'may peace prevail on earth' written by hand with wax around a peace sign:

"May Peace Prevail On Earth: single-wax batik with low water immersion dyed background".(Click on the images to see close-ups.)

An easier alternative is to use a water-soluble resist, but you have to be careful in the dye application step. Here's an example I made: "Immersion Dyeing with Water Soluble Resist" If you write on a shirt with Elmer's Blue School Gel, then paint on or spray on fiber reactive dye with soda ash activator mixed in, the results are good. Use detergent and extremely hot water to wash out the Blue School Gel. Do not fold the shirt in half to fit it into a bucket of dye, because the dry glue gel can transfer to the other part of the shirt.

With shirts made of 100% polyester or other synthetic fiber, Crayola Fabric Transfer Crayons work well, if you remember to do the writing on the paper backwards so it will be frontwards when ironed on. (I confess to, once, when very tired, forgetting to reverse the printing for an inkjet iron-on.) These can also work on 50% polyester/50% cotton, but the colors will not be as bright as on 100% synthetic fiber shirts. Don't confuse these with ordinary wax crayons; they are actually made of disperse dye. See "Iron-on Fabric Crayons for Synthetic Fibers".

A more challenging way to transfer text to fabric is by using Inkodye brand light-sensitive vat dyes with a transparent stencil. Sun painting could be done with individual plastic or metal letters that you arrange on top of the fabric while you dry transparent fabric paint in the sun or under an intense heat lamp. (You can't use a transparency for sun painting.) Blueprinting with a transparency could be quite easy, if you buy shirts that are ready-prepared for blueprinting, and can be done with a transparency. See "How to Dye and Paint Fabric with Light".

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Name: sydne
Message: hi I am doing a science fair project on dyeing. I am going to do what fabric holds a natural dye the best after washing it ten times. I have three questions. What fabric choices should I use? What dye should I use and last but not least how many dyes should I use and how many fabric choices. I was also wondering if you thought this would be a very successful project. Thank you so much for reading my letter and your website has already been very helpful.

What natural dye are you going to use? Often people write about using a "natural dye" that is no dye at all. For example, beets cannot be used to produce a red dye, and it takes a huge quantity of them to make even a dull beige dye. Don't use beets. Coffee and tea are better, especially on cotton. Turmeric is good (though susceptible to fading by light) and can be found in the spice department at most decent grocery stores. Mail-order natural dyes are the best, including such dyes as cochineal; I recommend Aurora Silk as a good source for mail-ordering natural dyes (see contact information on my Sources for Dyeing Supplies page).

Synthetic fibers other than rayon and nylon cannot be dyed with any ordinary dye. Stick to natural fibers, if you want the dye to work. Protein fibers such as wool can be dyed with many more different substances than can cellulose fibers such as cotton. Comparing a swatch of white wool fabric, a swatch of white cotton fabric, and a swatch of white polyester fabric, doing a different swatch of all three fibers with each dye you decide to try, would be a nice project. Put your swatches in a net ligergie bag to run them through the washing machine repeatedly without fear of losing any of the small pieces of fabric (they can disappear down the drain!).

Many natural dyes can be applied by boiling the fabric for half an hour or an hour in water with an equal volume of the dyestuff. Most natural dyes require that the fabric be pre-treated before dyeing by mordanting, which involves boiling the fabric with a substance called a mordant. Alum is a good mordant to use and can be found with the pickling spices in some grocery stores, or in some pharamcies, as well as by mail-order from dye suppliers. Some people say that salt and vinegar are mordants, but they are not. You will need more information on this. Your public library probably has several books on natural dyes. Also see "About Natural Dyes", at http://www.pburch.net/dyeing/naturaldyes.shtml.

How many should you try? That's something I can't help you with. It's your decision, based on how difficult you find this project to be.

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Name: Sarah
Message: I have 100% hemp trousers, dark brown with a slight purple-ish tone.  I would like to dye them a more true dark brown, essentially get rid of the purple hue.  I have a front loading washer with a separate detergent compartment.  Any ideas?

Overdye them yellow. That should correct for the purple hue. A greenish yellow is best if it's a red-violet hue, while a golden or orangish yellow is best for correcting a blue-violet, or if you want a rustier brown. Use a fiber reactive dye that will work on cellulose fibers such as cotton; the same dyes work on cotton and hemp. (Avoid all-purpose dye which requires clothing-shrinking boiling water to work at all well, and even after that bleeds a lot in the laundry forever.)

What country are you in? Dylon Machine Dye, widely available in the UK, is ideal for the front-loading washing machine, but is not available in North America. Dylon Permanent Dye is readily available in the US but includes instructions only for use in a small bucket of water.

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Name: Karen

Message: I want to change the colour of my roller blind (just one side). I thought about a spray fabric paint - but I don't know what to use?  The current colour is a pale golden yellow and I want to change is to a shade of brown.  Hope you can help. 

Darkening pale yellow to brown should be relatively easy, not requiring any opacity. I have never painted roller blinds, but it seems like a much better idea than dyeing them, since they usually appear to be made of synthetics, which are usually difficult or impossible to dye. A good quality fabric paint, such as Setacolor, might work. I would be afraid to try a paint that is not a fabric paint, because of the need for flexibility. Unfortunately, fabric paint does not usually come in spray form. You probably should use a sponge paintbrush as an applicator, and not even attempt to achieve a smooth solid color.

There can be no guarantee that this will work. A good fabric paint can be expensive, but a cheap paint that is not intended for fabric is more likely to crack and peel. You should compare the prices of a sufficiently large bottle of good fabric paint to the price of the most inexpensive ready-made blind you can find in the color you want.

I recommend that you carefully study Deb Horowitz's instructions on painting furniture, which you can find here:
http://www.pburch.net/dyeing/FAQ/furniture_painting.shtml
The procedures and the warnings will be similar. 

In many cases it is preferable to sew a slipcover for a couch, rather than attempting to dye or paint it. Perhaps you should consider learning to sew your own roller blinds. Here are some instructions that I found online, though I cannot vouch for their reliability:
http://www.hutchal.clara.net/curtains/roller.htm
Maybe this book would be useful for you: 
Curtains, Blinds & Valances (Sew in a Weekend Series)

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Name: Sarah
Message: Hello, Do you know if it is possible to bleach tweed wool and if so how? I want to make it a lighter shade of grey

No, I do not recommend this. 

Wool is easily damaged. You must never try to use ordinary household bleach, or chlorine bleach, on wool; it contains hypochlorite which will destroy the wool. Use bleach only on 100% cotton, linen, or hemp.

It is possible to lighten the color of wool with a large number of bottles of hydrogen peroxide (for instructions, see ProChem's "Bleaching Wool using Hydrogen Peroxide") or with reductive discharges such as Rit Color Remover, but even these agents can damage wool, and both shrinkage and felting are highly likely when wool is treated with the heat required for both of them.

For more information, see the article, "What chemicals can be used to remove dye?", from the discharge dyeing section of my FAQ pages.

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[updated 11/09/07]

Name: Debbie
Message: MY son's playroom has curtains that have a flower print. We are changing his room and need red curtains.  Can I dye this printed drapery red, and will the flower prints still show?  Second question, what type of dye to use and can I do this in my washing machine.  I am trying to find the least costly way without having to buy new red curtains.  I have never died anything ever.  Please help.  Thank you, Debbie

Since dye is transparent, a printed design on fabric will always come out at least a little bit darker than the background, after it has been dyed again. The print will still show. You can change the overall color, though, which might be enough for your purposes.

If the curtains are 100% cotton, and not treated with a stain-resistant or permanent-press finish, you can overdye them with a fiber reactive dye such as Procion MX dye. I do not recommend all-purpose dye, such as Rit brand dye, because it will bleed in the laundry forever, but if you always wash them separately, in cool water, the problem will be less serious. If you do buy all-purpose dye, you will need to use two to three times as much dye as the package recommends in order to get a true red. Dylon Permanent Dye is much better and can be found in many fabric stores.

If the curtains are 50% polyester, or any other synthetic other than rayon, you will not be able to dye them anything darker than pink. I do not recommend this for most boys' rooms. Make sure of your fiber content before you begin.

The easiest way to dye anything a solid color is in the washing machine; see the following page:
How can I dye clothing or fabric in the washing machine? 
http://www.pburch.net/dyeing/FAQ/washingmachine.shtml
If you find Dylon Permanent Dye, follow the package instructions closely.

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Name: Emily
Message: Hello. I thank you for the page you made but was curious on how you get different colours on one garment. Do you dye in one colour and then in another? Do you have to wait for it to dry?

If you use cool water fiber reactive dyes on cotton, rayon, or silk, you can apply the dye directly, by painting or squirting the different colors of dye on. The dye is presoaked with the high-pH dye fixative, usually soda ash, and then is kept warm and damp overnight to allow the dyes to react, before washing out excess dye.

If you use a hot water dye, such as all-purpose dye, you must usually immerse the fabric in the dye. This is how the oldest traditional form of tie-dyeing is done. 

I recommend that you buy a Jacquard tie-dye kit, or a Procion MX tie-dye kit from a dye supplier such as PRO Chemical & Dye or Dharma Trading Company. Your local crafts store may carry the Jacquard tie-dye kit, or you can mail order it through Amazon or from any of the companies listed on my Sources for Dyeing Supplies Around the World page (scroll down the page for a company in your part of the world). These kits contain Procion MX dye which can be applied directly to the garment, as many colors as you like at one time. In the UK, look for Dylon Cold Water dyes.

I can't recommend the Rit tie-dye kit, because it contains all-purpose dye. All-purpose dye should be used by boiling the fabric submerged in the dye for half an hour. The results are much less bright and colorful, and do not last nearly as long in the laundry.

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Name: Carolynn
Message: I have curtains (top valance portion only) that are floral (white base, with multi-color floral print).  I want to dye them (or have them professionally dyed) to a solid dark chocolate.  Can this be done?  The fabric is cotton, I believe.  I like the curtains, just not the print.  

Since dye is transparent, a printed design on fabric will always come out at least a little bit darker than the background, after it has been dyed again. The results may be more pleasing to you, however, as the tone-on-tone effect will be a lot more subtle. A dark chocolate brown will make the floral design much less noticeable.

If the curtains are all or mostly cotton, you can dye them yourself with fiber reactive dyes in the washing machine, as explained on the following page:

How can I dye clothing or fabric in the washing machine?

Or you can find a custom dyer to send your curtains to to dye for you, instead, by looking at the "Find a Custom Dyer" link, under the "More" menu, on most pages of my All About Hand Dyeing website, or via the following direct link:

Find a Custom Dyer

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Name: bhupinder
Message: Hi.
I sew tan deerskin products and would like to paint flowers and animal pictures on them. I have seen  some painted deerskin pillows and bags on the net. But I don't know what kind of paint I should use. Please help. Thanks

I'm sure that there are many choices. The best to use on a surface which will be flexed somewhat or may be exposed to some moisture would be a high quality fabric paint. 

The Jacquard company recommends their Lumiere and Neopaque fabric paints for use on leather, or for a more transparent effect, you could use Jacquard's Dye-Na-Flow. Since these are recommended, I believe that other high quality fabric paints will work, as well, including SetaColor paints and PRO Chemical & Dye's PROfab Textile Paints.

For sources from which to buy these paints, see the listings for these companies on my Sources for Dyeing Supplies page at http://www.pburch.net/dyeing/dyesources.shtml, or look at the Jacquard Products web site's store locator.

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