Has anyone dyed faded black clothes black?

Lulubells

I have dyed things and got very good results, be warned though if you wear body lotion - when I was on holiday I put aftersun on at the end of the day - put my jeans on and when out for the evening.....came home to discover my bottom was covered in black dye and I had to get my husband to scrub it off before I could hit the beach the next day...


Lulubells x

mirakl

MY OH and I wear a lot of black, I regularly freshen up the black with a washing machine dye, then I put a second load of black clothes in when the first is finished so they get a bit refreshed too with the leftover dye in the machine.

melancholly

I've used the magic dylon machine dye too - worked a treat!
the only thing to remember is that the thread usually doesn't change colour, but for getting faded black back to dark, that's not really an issue!

lim1bd

I've used machine dylon to re-dye things black. If I follow the instructions, it works great. The only thing is that if you try and dye too many things at once, then you get a lighter colour. Also artificial fabrics don't dye well at all (like lycra, or shiny fabric) and I second the comment above about threads nto generally dying. If I dye greying white t-shirts a different colour, the threads tend to stay white!

allIcouldwishfor

lim1bd wrote:

I've used machine dylon to re-dye things black. If I follow the instructions, it works great. The only thing is that if you try and dye too many things at once, then you get a lighter colour. Also artificial fabrics don't dye well at all (like lycra, or shiny fabric) and I second the comment above about threads nto generally dying. If I dye greying white t-shirts a different colour, the threads tend to stay white!

That's happened to me too. The thread staying the same colour is because it's nylon thread rather than cotton. Anyone know if there's any way of telling before you dye your garment whether the thread is nylon or cotton?

LizD_2

I think you have to assume all ready-made clothes are sewn with polyester or nylon thread: this is due to modern fabrics requiring more 'give' than pure cotton thread allows. As a home-sewer I've never found purely cotton thread - even sylko is polyester-covered cotton.

tawnyowls

ashby wrote:

It's really impossible to get a good black with home dyes. i have tried in the past but even the dye manufacturers admit - or they used to have this in their leaflets - that you can't get a deep black. the best I've managed was a charcoal grey colour not dissimilar to faded black really, i wouldn't waste cash on it if I were you.

The trick to getting a really good deep black is to use one sachet of black and one sachet of dark navy blue.

Honest!

gelato_cat

Pull a loose piece of the thread off and burn it with a flame. If it burns to ash, it's natural fibre (ie cotton). If it goes hard and plasticy, it's manmade (usually polyester/nylon). If it smells like burning hair, it's silk.

HTH

Suze

allIcouldwishfor wrote:

That's happened to me too. The thread staying the same colour is because it's nylon thread rather than cotton. Anyone know if there's any way of telling before you dye your garment whether the thread is nylon or cotton?

Bennifred

I've used the all-in-one type of machine dyes to get faded blacks dark again many times (goth DS:rolleyes: ) - generally works really well as long as you don't try to do too many things at once, otherwise they don't come out really dark. One thing that didn't work too well was a top of mine which had a quite high lycra content - it did come out much blacker, but also sort of stiff and crackly?! I'd stopped wearing it beacause it had faded so much so I guess I didn't lose anything by trying to dye it.

One other thing: I usually put one of those colour-catcher sheets in the washing machine when I wash clothes I've dyed, and there's usually lots of colour on it, so probably best not to wash whites straight after blacks!

LizD_2

"Pull a loose piece of the thread off and burn it with a flame. If it burns to ash, it's natural fibre (ie cotton). If it goes hard and plasticy, it's manmade (usually polyester/nylon). If it smells like burning hair, it's silk."

I'd forgotten about that one! My GCSE Textiles teacher would be ashamed!