Jacquard Procion Mx Dye 4 Color Set with Soda Ash and Color Mixing Chart - Lemon Yellow - Fuchsia - Turquoise - Jet Black

Received on time, good product

I bought this kit to dye a few white t-shirts that Ive been using as undershirts for the last few years. The t-shirts had perspiration stains under the arms, but I love the fabric and fit so much that I wanted to see if I could rescue them. Now, all the dyeing websites will tell you not to work on old, stained clothing. That is probably prudent advice, as Ill discuss later! I was willing to take the risk, especially as practice learning how to dye in case I decide on a larger project down the road. What I love about this set is that it contains the printers primaries -- cyan, magenta, and yellow, plus black -- so that you can mix your own colors. With just three shirts to dye, I could have bought three premixed colors instead of four primaries. But I find that a bit limiting, and wanted to have fun mixing my own. This kit also includes enough soda ash to do about 5-6 dye baths (bucket method), but if you run out, Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda is 100% soda ash and readily available for a few bucks at the grocery store or drugstore. I dyed my shirts using the immersion method in a 5-gallon bucket (actually, mine was a 4-gallon kitty litter bucket). You can do this in the washing machine, but you have to use a lot more dye, soda ash, and salt, and you still have to babysit the machine to make sure it doesnt start the rinse cycle before youre ready. I find it more economical and not that much more labor-intensive to just do it in a bucket. For the first shirt, I was trying for sort of an indigo color, a deep blue-purple. I mixed 3/4 tsp. of the fuchsia dye and 1 1/4 tsp. of the turquoise in a mason jar and added a little bit of water to make a paste, then a little more water to get a pourable dye. I filled my bucket a little over halfway with water, added two cups of non-iodized table salt, stirred to dissolve, and then added the dye. Finally, I added my t-shirt, which I had dampened. After stirring off and on for about 20 minutes, I mixed 1/3 cup of soda ash into warm water in the mason jar and added a third of it to the bucket, stirred for 5 minutes, added another third, stirred for 5 minutes, then the last third and another 5 minutes of stirring. Finally, I gave the shirt another 45 minutes in the dye bath, stirring periodically. I put it in the washing machine, ran a rinse cycle, then washed it with detergent in hot water and tumbled dry. (This technique came from pburch.net, an incredibly thorough site on dyeing.) You can see the result in the far left of the customer image I uploaded. Its hardly the indigo I was going for! In fact, it was a happy accident, because I was planning to turn one of the t-shirts into a raspberry color, and thats exactly what I got. But what went wrong? Well, I did a little research and learned that turquoise is a particularly finicky dye. On the Procion dye jars, it says to mix the dye into cold water, and thats where I went wrong. My research revealed that the water should in fact be at *least* room temperature, if not warmer for turquoise. I even saw some suggestions to put the dye-soaked fabric in the microwave to accelerate the process! I wasnt brave enough to do that, but I was happy to try warmer water with my second shirt. This time, I placed my bucket in a bathtub and filled it with warm-to-hot water, about 110 degrees. I also filled the bathtub with hot water to try to maintain the warm temperature in the bucket. I used much, much more turquoise in the second batch: 2 tsp. of turquoise and only 1/4 tsp. of fuchsia. Otherwise, I followed the procedure exactly as I had for the first shirt. The result was a very pretty periwinkle, not quite the rich indigo I had aimed for, but again, a lovely color Im thrilled with. (I should note here that the amount of dye you use determines how light or dark the final result. Its suggested to use about 1 tablespoon of dye for a medium color or 2 tablespoons for a dark color, per pound of fabric. You scale up or down based on fabric weight. My t-shirts each weighed just 1/4 pound, so this suggests 1/4 tablespoon for medium or 1/2 tablespoon -- 1 1/2 teaspoons -- for dark. In fact I used more than this, yet got medium colors.) For my final shirt, I wanted to crack open the jar of yellow dye, so I decided to go green. I had definitely learned from the first two rounds that color mixing is an imprecise science. I wanted to err on the side of more turquoise rather than too much yellow (I love lime green but it doesnt suit my complexion at all), so I mixed 2 tsp. turquoise with 1/2 tsp. yellow. This gave a very pretty emerald, pretty much exactly the hue I was aiming for! However, this shirt ended up with blotches in spots and I can only conclude that there were some invisible marks or stains on the t-shirt that only became evident when I dyed it. This is one of the dangers of working with old fabric! Incidentally, I was most worried about the perspiration marks on the shirts, but in all cases those were nearly completely hidden by the dye. I would absolutely recommend this kit if you are willing to roll the dice a bit with respect to color. Its definitely a matter of guesswork, and I found that even testing the dye mix first on a small piece of paper towel or just observing the fabric while it was in the dye bath didnt really give a good indication of what the final result would look like. Its as much about how well the fabric takes the dye (and what technique you use, etc.) as it is about what proportions of colors you use. But it was great fun, and I still have enough dye for many more projects, especially if I replenish my turquoise supply.

Best price Ive seen on this dye. It IS colorfast for the most part, and can be used in cold water. Had a blast this summer dying old cotton and silk clothes AND even running shoes so that 20 year old once white blouses or things that had discolored in the wash had gorgeous new colors. Half the price Ive seen in stores around here. (Although found no real use for the yellow except to make green,) My daughter went wild with the fuschia -- dyed old handbags, stained blouses, old shirts, etc. The turquoise was my favorite. And black, what can we say, we spend a lot of time in NY--ya gotta have cred. And if somethings stained or discolored beyond hope of use of other colors, black covers a multitude of food groups, sweat stains, faded colors, etc. Easy to use, complete in package. Caution! Wear gloves, or youll have to explain why you have fuschia/turquoise/black hands for a week.

The tye dye product was great. It could use a little more instructions, such as wear gloves when dealing with the soda ash. I ended up absorbing so much in through my skin i was really sick for the rest of the day. Which, i was wearing glovs for the actual tye dye part, but didnt think i would need then just to soak the shirts in the soda ash. Other than that the product is great and the end result was awsome!

I love these dyes! Forget RIT, these dyes work so much better and have really vibrant colors! FOr your basic the dye t-shirts, its really important to soak your item in baking soda water first, then wrap wet, dyed item it up in a plastic bag and let it sit for a day or two or more before rinsing.

Second time trying to replace this item and again it arrived in a busted package with dye and soda ash everywhere. I don’t have time to try again to replace it and have to deal with what I’ve got which is half the ink and ash.

Good colors werent as vibrant as I wanted but prob operator error.

I’ve had a good time tie-dying with this kit! I have done four tees and have plenty of die left for more. Read and follow the directions, look up some videos and you’ll be fine. My bag of soda ash was broken but the powder was contained in the package and I didn’t lose any.

Good product thank you.

Fantastic product - colors great - except black - did not use the black at all - Love the product. I snow dyed silk scarves (From Dharma Trading) with these dyes. Loved the effect - colors are bright and look great.