Dying Polyester

Hey gang,
Did a search on this topic and it's locked , so I'll ask my question here:

I need to dye polyester.

I recieved an Imperial officers costume that is AWESOME in craftmanship, but took 4 months to make and ship (uggh). It's turns out that it's TOO LIGHT (grey).

I want to dye it charcoal-ish in color. Will the dye take to it? Will I have to prep the garment? Will it dye evenly? Will Batman be able to escape the evil clutches of Louie the Lilac?

LMK please!!
Gary

 

No it will not dye. You'd need industrial strength dye that is used specifically for synthetics. However you most likely won't be able to get ahold of that easily. Also they are highly toxic and not easy to work with.

 

Polyester can and will dye, but it's usually very light. If you had a white uniform and wanted to tint it, that would be possible. But dyeing poly a dark grey will probably not happen for you.

Should you wish to try it anyway, definitely test first on a scrap of the fabric that your costume is made of. You don't want to ruin your otherwise excellent costume with a bad dye job.

Caitlin

 

It's hard to dye poly a different color, but I have successfully tinted it, which I think is what you need. If you can swatch an inside part, try soaking it in RIT dye for a few hours. Then rinse A LOT and see if it's dark enough. I've soaked synthetics overnight to get a darker tinge or a different color hue (like a blue soak turned a light pink to a pale pinky-lavender). It's possible, just don't expect too dramatic of results.

 

As other's have said polyester will take home dyes to a degree, and this does sound like what you need.

The problem is when a dye doesn't take as strongly, you sometimes don't get just a lighter shade but a different tint to the shade as well. For example I used navy once and got a greenish tint on the polyester in the fabric mix.

So if you do have some spare fabric you can test with the darker colours.

Of course polyester does take dyes or else we wouldn't have colourful polyester fabrics but commercial dyes requires different processign to what we can safely do at home usually.

I have also heard you can use leather dyes on polyester. But it is really stinky, and depending on the type of dye is just how noxious it can be.