How To Mix Tie Dye Powder With Water
There are many reasons why, over the last 20 years or so of working with fiber reactive dyes, I’ve chosen to keep learning and investing in these amazing dyes instead of jumping ship and working with other types.
Sure, I took a natural dye class here and there, and as a yarn lover I had to try dyeing wool with acid dyes, but the type of dyes that truly have my heart are fiber reactive dyes — aka, cold process dyes, Procion type dyes, MX, or what most people new to the scene just call “tie dye dyes.”
They’re the best, they’re my favorite, and you’re going to love working with them. In this post I’m sharing with you how to mix tie dye powder. In other words, how to mix fiber reactive dyes with water in order to make all sorts of cool tie dye creations.
What Is Tie Dye Powder?
Tie dye powder is just how it sounds, this is the powder you purchase, in the color(s) you want, that you then mix with water to create your liquid dye. The liquid dye is then used for your dyeing project.
In this blog post, I’ll be discussing fiber reactive dyes only. They’re a particularly wonderful type of dye that are awesome for DIY home dyers because:
They are designed to be used with cold water, no heat necessary.
They work with tap water, no need for distilled unless your water is very hard or very soft.
They’re incredibly versatile — use them for tie-dyeing with squeeze bottles, making a vat of dye to dip things into, sprinkling over ice for ice dyeing, painting on for batik, and much more.
They have a very easy wash-out process, and can be washed out by hand in the sink or thrown into the washing machine.
They’re safe for septic systems and city water systems.
Fiber reactive dyes are sold by weight, usually in 2 oz, 4 oz, 8 oz, 1 lb, or more jars. I buy mine from Dharma Trading Company, but other good sources are Grateful Dyes and Custom Colours.
What Do You Mix Tie Dye Powder With?
Use cold or room temperature tap water when you want to mix fiber reactive dyes up into a liquid solution. I have taught tie-dye in so many unique situations, like in the middle of a field at a festival, using gallon jugs of store-bought water… and with a hose, when teaching on site where they don’t have access to a sink… but usually, I’m using straight up tap water at my studio.
I don’t turn the handle all the way to cold cold, but somewhere in the middle. If you’re wiling to explore some advanced techniques, this type of dye can do some very cool things when you know how to use hot water to speed up the curing process, so read on!
Do You Mix Tie Dye Powder With Hot or Cold Water?
Cold or room temp water is all these dyes need to start the dissolving process. But, in the past few years, adventurous dyers have been shortening the curing process (how long the dyes have to sit) by using a very precise application of hot water to make the dyes take effect immediately, instead of waiting the usual 24 hour curing time!
That process is called hot water irrigation (HWI), and if you’re new, I would wait and master the standard tie dye procedure before attempting something as far out as HWI. Learn the basics before you learn to do tricks.
How Much Powder Dye To Mix For Tie Dye?
Naturally, powdered dyes can be watered down as much or as little as you like in order to get the perfect shade for you. There are some “suggested” strengths designed to get you close to the same results that the makers of the dyes used in order to make the color swatch that you see on your screen when ordering.
But, keep in mind that even then your mileage may vary because color strength also changes based on what fabrics you’re using, if they’ve been pre-washed, how much fabric you use, how much water, your particular water quality, etc.
It’s an ever-moving target, so here’s our handy formula for most applications.
Bottle Dyeing (Squeeze Bottles)
For 16 ounce bottles, I use 1 TBSP of dye powder to 16 ounces of water. For tiny 4 ounce bottles, I use 1 tsp dye powder to 4 ounces of water. This gets me nice strong color results for that classic saturated tie-dye look.
Making a Dye Bath in a Bucket (Immersing or Dipping)
This is what we do for Shibori dyeing projects and low-water immersion. In my smallest bucket, which is a 1 gallon bucket, I use 1/2 TBSP dye powder for half a gallon, or a full TBSP for when I need to fill the bucket up almost all the way.
Don’t forget to leave room for your fabric!
Painting On Dye (Batik)
I use very small amounts of dye when painting in areas of batik! Like, very small.
I have a 1/4 tsp measuring spoon and I use it to just dip teeny amounts of dye at a time, so maybe 1/8 tsp? You could always make a 4 ounce jar of water with 1 tsp dye powder mixed in for each color that you want, lid them and store them for when you need to paint larger areas.
But for me, I like to make them as I need them, using a tiny pinch of dye powder in about 1 TBSP water.
How To Mix Tie Dye Powder With Water
For bottle dyeing, I put the dye powder into the empty bottle, fill it almost all the way up to the top with room temp tap water, put a secure lid onto the bottle, and shake like crazy!
Shake, let it rest, check out the bottom and sides, and shake again. Repeat until you feel confident that your dye is thoroughly dissolved.
That’s it, for mixing dye bottles! You’re ready to go.
For making dye baths, like in Shibori or low-water immersion, this part of the process is called “pasting up.” We are going to paste up your dye powder into a little bit of water first, so that it is absolutely thoroughly dissolved and there are no tiny little bits of concentrated powder left floating in your solution.
Those little undissolved bits cause freckling, and freckling is (IMHO) not desirable on a finished piece. You see freckling on a lot of first timers’ work, and it’s one of the signs of an amateur dye job.
Step 1: Add Water to Powder, NOT Powder to Water
I use a clear glass jar and a plastic picnic spoon to do my pasting up. I put the amount of dye powder that I need into the jar, then add a little water and stir, smoosh, scrape the dye until it’s completely dissolved.
Step 2: Stir, Smoosh, Scrape
Add more water bit by bit until you have a nice smooth, thick, even liquid— a glass jar is nice because you can see the tiny freckles of dye on the sides of the jar, and know that you need to keep stirring.
If you feel or see any “grit” left on the bottom, or see any bits of powder floating on the surface, you haven’t done enough work! Colors with red molecules in them need an even longer stirring time to fully dissolve.
Stir until your dye is totally, completely dissolved. Now you have a concentrate to work with.
Step 3: Add Pasted Up Concentrate To Your Dye Bath
Pour your concentrated, fully dissolved dye solution into the waiting bucket or container of water. I use a long plastic spoon to stir the concentrate fully into the dye bath.
This is your chance to look at the bottom of your jar — if you’ve pasted up correctly, you’ll see a nice clean bottom, with no “sludge” of leftover dye bits left behind!
If you do see sludgy bits, add a little more water in and stir again until everything is definitely dissolved. Your dye bath is now ready to activate with soda ash and have the project you’re dyeing immersed!
How To Mix Soda Ash For Tie Dye
Maybe the MOST important thing to know about using fiber reactive dyes is that you must, must, must use soda ash (sodium carbonate) somewhere in your process if you want the dyes to behave properly— not fade, bleed, run, or look disappointing.
Your dyes can be mixed up perfectly and look great when applied to fabric, but if you don’t use soda ash as the fixative ingredient, your project will fade mightily when it’s washed! You can’t skip the soda ash.
What is soda ash? It’s an alkalizing agent and a simple pool chemical. I encourage people to put gloves on before they start using soda ash, just because it can really dry out your hands.
It has wreaked havoc on my already weak fingernails! Sodium carbonate isn’t poisonous, but you don’t want pets or children to get too curious.
We keep ours in big buckets and put lids on them when the studio is open to the public. It leaves a fine white ash everywhere you spill it, as it dries.
The ratio for a soda ash soaking solution is 1 cup soda ash powder to 1 gallon of water.
You can let your piece(s) soak anywhere from 10 minutes to overnight. Nothing bad will happen if they’re in there for awhile. When you’re ready to dye, get as much of the soaking solution out of the fabric as possible.
If you have a washing machine, it really saves you a lot of time to put them on a high spin cycle. If not, use your hands to wring every last drop out of the fabric.
The wetter the piece is when the dyes touch it, the more watered-down your results will be. Also, if your piece is too wet, you'll see a lack of crispness in the patterns that you fold or tie. So wring it good.
Can I Make Tie Dye Powder At Home?
If we’re talking about fiber reactive dyes, then no — there’s no way to make these at home unless you’re a real legit chemist in the niche of synthetic pigments. Just buy them!
Of course, you can make your own blends at home, if you buy a few basic, primary colors.
Safety note: if you’re going to mix fiber reactive dye powders at home, please wear a mask!
These puppies are not good for our lungs when airborne, and mixing powders is one of the riskier things to do with them, so wear a mask and work on top of newspaper that you’ve spritzed with water, to catch the powder that will settle all around your work area.
You’d be amazed at how far dye powder can travel in the air and accidentally dye things that were not in your direct work area.
Tie Dye Instructions Using a Tie Dye Kit
Chances are, if you’ve bought a tie-dye kit from a craft store, they’ve already put the soda ash powder into the bottles, so follow the instructions from the manufacturer.
If you’ve bought one of our Ice Dye Kits, you don’t have to do any pre-mixing at all! It’s ready to use — just follow our included instructions.
This blog post is designed for the folks not using a kit, who have purchased fiber reactive dye powders and don’t know what to do next to get started. With a kit, you should always refer back to the instructions that came with that particular kit.
Correctly mixing tie dye powder with water is a vital step in the tie dyeing process.
In this post we taught you how to mix tie dye powder appropriately with water. The things that matter most are that the dyes are thoroughly dissolved, so no teeny powdered bits are left in the liquid, and that you’re using the right amount of water to dye for the colors you desire.
This part of the dyeing process takes some practice and finesse, so don’t worry if you don’t nail it the first time! Every dyer has a slightly different way of going about the process, and you’ll definitely find what works easily for you and gives you great results.
