Dying clothes...

[Methenyouplus4]

Bought a dress from eBay, lovely but colour doesn't suit me at all. It wasn't expensive but equally I'd be a bit gutted if I ruined it.

It is dark pink 92% polyester and 8% elasticine. I'd like to dye it navy but have no idea if that fabric dyes well or if I will get even coverage, as it has several drapes in the fabric.

[maybemyrtle]

Have a look at the dylon site, they're v helpful if you email them with qs too. I've never tried to dye polyester so I've no experience with this... helpful

[niminypiminy]

Polyester is very difficult to dye. You need acid-based dyes to do it which you can get from specialist suppliers. Dylon dyes won't work at all.

Generally speaking the best fabrics for home dyeing are cotton, linen and viscose which all take dye extremely well and are easy to dye.

[Orangeanddemons]

You need a disperse dye for polyester, and you can buy buy polyester dyes from Dylan stockists.

[amarmai]

if you boil it long enuf, the poly will pick up some dye- but dark pink + what wd give you navy? you'd get purple at best.

[Methenyouplus4]

Bugger. Seems I'd be better leaving it. Although, if I dyed it navy (or tried to) and it came out purple, would it be an even coverage.x

[SpongeBobJudgeyPants]

The stitching often 'takes' dye differently to the main fabric, so if there is visible stitching, that could be an issue.

[amarmai]

no guarantees of even dye coverage in home dying, !

[Methenyouplus4]

Thank you. Are there places that dye thibgs for you? Or is that £££?

[SpongeBobJudgeyPants]

Ask at your local dry-cleaners. Suspect many Earth Pounds though....

[Swampmonster39]

I've always found the machine wash dyes give even coverage but never tried with polyester.

[Bambooshoots14]

I looked into dyeing a similar material dress that I'd stained and research told me it wouldn't work as polyester needs a high heat but you can't use a high heat on elastane

[amarmai]

also dye does not necessarily hide stains.

[Orangeanddemons]

Polyester can be dyed in a normal washing machine with polyester dye. The garment will probably have been stitched inpolyester thread so that will take too. Elastene and polyester sould be both washed on a similar heat which is quite low, as they are both made from oil which has thermoplastic qualities, and washing them too high could melt them.

[AstrantiaMallow]

I posted about a couple of weeks ago to ask about dyeing an item of mine.
In the end after googling I contacted somewhere called Blue Mill. They quoted me £15 + postage to dye the item. But there was a risk of shrinkage as my item is hand wash only. And they said any stitching was likely to remain different colour.
Might be worth emailing them to see what they say?

[Methenyouplus4]

Brilliant, will do, thank you. Do you have a link as suspect lots of responses if I just Google search the name.