Dying new white cotton jeans

Yes, that again.

The dye came today so I used it.

Here's the thing about this dye. It is used for cellulose-based fabrics, cotton, linnen, jute, hemp, sisal. ramie and rayon, which is artificial silk made from cellulose fibers. The dye reacts with the fibers instead of just coating them. It works from inside the fibers. Salt helps the dye penetrate. A lot of salt. And then sodium carbonate fixes the dye. They call it a cold water dye but that is because the water doesn't have to be boiled. It helps for the water to be the hottest possible from the tap. They are the brightest, fastest, most permanent dyes possible for plant-based fibers.

I used a 5 gallon bucket. I mixed 2 cups of kosher salt in a pot of boiling water to mix with the bath. I mixed the dye in a half cup of very hot water. (From the same pot of boiling water before the salt was added) And I mixed the sodium carbonate in a cup with hottest possible tap water.

The pants are brand new so no dirt, but they were washed anyway in case there is any sizing. I don't know if they do that on pants as they do shirts but I didn't want to take a chance. I used very small amount of detergent.

The color is emerald green. I like this color a lot but it seemed too bright. Too gay. It's more of a woman's color. But it doesn't look that bad, actually. Hmm. Tough call. 

They dye diminishes in effectiveness within an hour. It will not be able to bond after that even though there is still color in the bath. It won't be able to react. So I had to make a quick decision. I darkened it with an equal amount of dark green. So now the color is emerald + dark green. Light and dark conflicting.

Perhaps I went too far.  Wet ↑ dried ↓.

It's much lighter when it is dry. 

The stitching on the pants is synthetic thread. That did not take the dye. The leather patch did not take the dye. The red Levi tag did not take the dye.

The stitching sticks out on the darker color. Far less so on the emerald green.

See how the synthetic stitching stops on the leg after the pocket area?  It looks funny.

This project was fun and dramatic and creative, and now I can tell you probably want buy a bunch of clothes and dye them to have this same kind of fun.

See, the pants are fine white. There is no real reason to dye them. Except for fun. And style. I guess. I'm only just started. I have four types of green to experiment with. And I need more colored pants. Maybe I won't be this size very long but I still need pants while I'm in it. So now I'm set to buy more white jeans. 

I learned something significant. 

The first two times I bought this Procion MX dyes from Amazon. They come in 2/3 ounce bottles of powder at various prices. Each dye is different.  Shipping is included in the price. I was satisfied with the cost. It's reasonable.

While at Dharma Trading the dyes are half the cost and the bottles hold three  times as much, 2 oz. It does not include shipping but that is kept to a minimum. It's a much better deal. 

The dyes are used mostly for tie-dye and batik. Dharma. Tie dye. Get it? They're hippies.

Kidding. They're a family run business and they're charming as can be. They called me to mention they noticed I didn't have sodium carbonate with my order. They wanted to make sure I wouldn't be disappointed. It's so cheap I had them add it to the order. Turns out I already had way more than enough on hand from previous order. You don't use that much. Only a few tablespoons to change the pH in the bath. They sent a catalog with a better printing of colors. But it hardly helps. The catalog printing company has the same problem matching colors as display monitors do. They come close but they're not exact. It's always a bit of a gamble. And that's part of the fun. The catalog is filled with all these white natural fiber articles of clothing of the sort you imagine Mormon people wear. Everything is white. Everything looks like cult clothes. Except white baseball hats for a few dollars. White cotton t-shirst for a few dollars. Painter pants. Plain dresses that look like cult dresses. They're to have fun dying in hippy tie-dye and batik techniques. You could have a lot of fun with this if you cared to. I had a long conversation with a woman who works there. Their customer service is tremendous.

So, off to Amazon to get more pants. I need orange and red pants in this size. And that emerald green isn't looking so bad. Who knows? I might go for bright blue. Or bright yellow.

What the heck.