Black clothing is the hardest clothing to maintain, because it’s so vulnerable to fading. Even red clothes fade more gracefully than black!
When the blacks in my outfits start looking faded, and my black shirt no longer matches my black hoodie, and my partner’s black work pants start showing wear at the knee, instead of buying new clothes I grab a couple of packs of cheap fabric dye, and over the weekend I make our black garments look like new again. Here’s how:
BEFORE: black shirt faded to grey shirt
1. Buy some cheap dye. I’m sorry to be so blunt, but normally I HATE Rit dye. It’s hard to work with and tends to not dye evenly, so even though it’s way cheaper than professional cotton fabric dye, you get what you pay for, you know?
However, there is one circumstance in which Rit dye works great, and that is when you want to refresh the color of an article of clothing. Rit, or any other amateur-level fabric dye found at any crafts store, can re-dye black clothes reliably, without a ton of fuss, and without any uneven spots showing. Buy a pack of dye for approximately every two shirts or one pair of pants, knowing that you can also throw an extra pair of socks or underwear into each pot.
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Love this!! I do have a dye question that’s been nagging me. I washed a (brand new!) white shirt recently and it came out covered in brown splotches that won’t come back out. Can I dye it another solid color to make it wearable again? I don’t want to do tie dye or applique, because the whole idea with this shirt purchase was to have a foundation piece in my wardrobe for layering etc.
Yikes! Did you Oxyclean it, even? Anyway, you absolutely could dye it a different color, but I’d try a few more times to clean it first, and even then go for a pretty dark over-dye, because the stains can dye unpredictably. Mind you, stains are one of the main reasons WHY I over-dye, but it doesn’t always work perfectly.
Ooh I should try Oxyclean! If that fails, I’ll give overdying a go. It’s unwearable as-is, so I may as well experiment, right?
I have blue and black jeans that have had close encounters with chlorine bleach. Spots of “pink” show where that’s happened. Can I simply dye them back to their original color or do I have to ‘bleach’ them completely?
I’m afraid that it WOULD be splotchy if you dyed them as-is. If I had it to do, I’d probably bleach them in the wash, then re-dye them. I’ve heard of others who combine colors successfully for more realistic denim dyeing–black + navy, say, for a dark wash. If you really want them to look great when you’re done, I’d suggest scoring a couple of pairs of old jeans just to experiment on, and only dyeing your own jeans when you’re happy with the experimental jeans.
Congratulations for your blog… I love it …. I have a question … Did Rite work for Batik crafts like Dylon used to woork for it ???? Because Dylon doesn´t sell this product anymore….. Thank you…