I did some searching but wasn’t able to find anything on this subject, so please forgive me if it’s just that my search skills suck!
There are two shirts I want to buy, one made of nylon and the other a poly cotton blend. They are only available in navy blue, so I was thinking of dyeing them black. Is this possible? How well would it work, and would it be permanent?
I know absolutely nothing about dyeing fabric (obviously) – can anyone recommend a good place to start researching?
Nylon is nearly impossible for the home dyer. It just doesn’t pick up color.
The problem with the poly/cotton blend is more complicated. Since it’s already sewn into a shirt, there is more than just fabric. There is thread and perhaps trim, and these things are most likely a different material. Differnet materials pick up and hold dye at different rates. So you may end up with a black shirt with blue thread lines.
If you want to try it anyway, Dharma Tranding Co. has good products and good tutorials.
Hmm. Well I’m not sure now if I should take the chance dyeing the fabric… but I’ll do a little more reading and maybe chat with one of the people at Dharma Trading Co before I decide.
thanks for your help, everyone!
Here is a fabric list from Rit Dye.
This is not totally true. It IS true that you cannot dye Nylon with a product intended for cotton (like RIT or Dylon). However, you CAN dye nylon easily, safely, and permanently with Kool-Aid. Kool-Aid is a non-toxic acid dye that works well on all animal protein fibers (wool, silk) as well as Nylon. Basic instructions can be found here – although the article suggests that Kool-Aid does not work on synthetics they are only mostly right. Nylon is the only synthetic fabric that it does work on for reasons that are briefly explained here
The bad news is, Kool-Aid doesn’t come in black.
The good news is, many “black” dyes are merely extremely concentrated shades of blue or purple. “Grape” Kool-Aid is pretty blackish to begin with – I’d use, say 10-12 packets and see where it gets you.