dyeing jeans

[Amada]

I have a pair of Levi's, brand new with tags, that were sitting in storage somewhere in my house. I recently found them but I have no idea why I bought them - they are very, very light blue, stonewashed/bleached/whatever. I really, really doubt I can return them, as it has been months, and I don't have the receipt. I was wondering if I could wash them with blue jean dye (indigo, synthesized or not) to get "dry" jeans.

[ringring]

I think it's possible to buy home-dye indigo kits, but you won't ever bring a pair of pre-washed jeans back to dry factory state.

Denim is yarn dyed. That is, the yarn is dyed before weaving - with the warp yarns being dyed indigo only. If you dye at home you'll be garment dyeing - and you'll overdye both warp and weft.

Your best bet, to get them dark again, is to overdye them black, with a regular home-dye kit. It will be a LOT easier than trying to dye indigo. You'll end up with a blue/black pair of jeans. They won't fade like dark indigo jeans, but it's probably the best solution.

[juxtaposed]

hi ringring

i bought a denime on ebay, for 10 bucks. had to get it since so cheap. but the problem: it has some acid spots and so called designs (the guy probably made some experiments with chloride on his jeans) on front, which look weird. how can i get rid of them? is this possible after all? the rest of the denim is awsome, like you can expect form denime.

thanks for info. you are an asset to this site..

[ringring]

Hey Juxta,

Thanks for the kind words.

I don't think there's much you can do about the bleach spots. You can't add back the dye, and any overdyeing will probably not cover the differences in tone. The only thing I can think of is bleaching the entire jeans.

Otherwise experiment. 10 bucks of fun.

[juxtaposed]

ok thanks,

i ll try to overdye the spots, i dont care if the color wont match. still better then they are now... but bleaching the whole jeans would first ruin the whole jeans , and second who wants to wear white jeans. BTW i have a plain white levis reds with the golden button . the jeans is made of paper. yes paper not denim. feels kinda hemp. you must not expose it to water or any liquids. only dry-clean.

funny unique ones. were on sale at the levis outlet for 5 euros. cant say no to that..

[trinket]

juxtaposed. don't dye them... i think you will regret it.

you can't really spot dye. at best - you could use a fabric marker.

i recommend you do some patching or repairs over the bleached spots. it will look much better.

_trinket

[gdggdg]

Can anyone help with secrets to successful jean dying? I tried in my washing machine (black rit dye), but was dissapointed in the result. It didn't really take. Do you wash in hot vs cold --I heard adding salt my help? Any suggestions would be appreciated.

[poly800rock]

......................

[tangerine]

It's been a long time since I used any RIT dye but it was not very colorfast and seemed to wash out quickly.

Procion dyes are a lot more work - a PITA, really - but the color stays in the cloth much better. I overdyed some blue jeans once and the results were good (I dyed them brown though, not black.)

[LordOak]

this is something that I have been wondering as well.

I also have thought about trying to fill an airbrush or some other sort of spraying device with dye so that it would sit on the denim in a more light manner. the only problem that I could think of with that is that it may also sit on the stiching.

Im sure someone will try it out.

just remember who said it first. haha

[chris]

i bought a pair of "skinny" jeans from gap last week for like, $3, because i was wondering this same exact thing. i [tried] overdying them with black rit dye (in power form), and it seemed to work at first. until i took them out of the dryer and realized that they had just turned a darker shade of blue, rather than somewhat black-ish blue (like i had initially wanted -- somthing similar to the acne wash called "blackness", which is black overdyed indigo denim). maybe i needed to use more packets, or leave the jeans in longer. or something.

[tweeds]

just to check, the overdye refers to dyeing work that's being done atop another layer of completed dye?

as opposed to some of the dyeing work that i've seen chris post pictures of (the cheap mondays), where he strips the dye from the denim before using the black on the decolourised fabric.

[poly800rock]

just to check, the overdye refers to dyeing work that's being done atop another layer of completed dye?

as opposed to some of the dyeing work that i've seen chris post pictures of (the cheap mondays), where he strips the dye from the denim before using the black on the decolourised fabric.

yeah, thats what i had in mind....overdye my apcs..to black...and see how they fade..

[Double D]

I've done a fair bit of overdying myself. Over here in the UK we have Dylon rather than Rit dye, and in my experience machine dye is a lot better than hand dye. Get a couple of packets and overdye gradually over a period of several washes if I was you, remembering to stick a load of salt in the washer (don't ask me why, but it needs it). It takes quite a lot of dying to get the colour to fully penetrate denim - if you have an exposed white patch of distress, that patch will take on about twice as much colour as white threads that aren't exposed - if you tear the denim you'll find those threads haven't taken on so much dye.

[XX]

if you want to do it right, its going to be expensive. black is a very very hard color to get and requires a lot of dye (and most of it will end up going down your drain)

go to dharmatrading.com and it will give you instructions on how to use their dyes.

but like i said, theyre not cheap..

and if you use rit dye (even if you were to use a ton of it - like 5 packets) the darkest color youll be able to get is like a dark purple color.

good luck

[houston]

I have always found that any dark rit dye always ends up purple. I have done jeans, t's, and a hoodie. All separate with full power rit dye... they all sucked.

[superBobo]

bringing this older thread to life, instead of starting a new one and have everyone shout at me:)

Im thinking of dying som Levis 542, since I like the fit and weight(theyre pretty heavy!), but not the color. They are a bit pre distressed, with really fake traintracks, and some "whiskers".

What Im most looking for is an even indingoish blue. Is that possible with home dying of jeans?

[Double D]

They'll look really horrible and 80s if you try and do that, because you'll wipe out the white weft and so it will lose it's denim look. I'd go with dark green, which I'm seeing a lot on prewashed jeans a lot this season, slate grey or dark brown myself. Or black would do the job, in fact because of the quirks of overdying black over jeans, you'll probably get a better indigo blue look than with 'indigo' dye.

[keri]

If you can lay your hands on an airbrush, you would get good results without scarificing the weft, the jeans i overdyed did take in dye to the weft, which made them less denimy, but the weave was appripriate for that kind of dye anyway.

[Double D]

Hand dying outside out (as opposed to inside out) won't take to the weft as strongly as machine dying, especially if you don't soak too long.

[superBobo]

Thanks for the reply.

Wont black dye also give it a non-jeans look with coloring the weft? I´ve been thinkin of brown aswell, but can really imagine the result of it. The main thing is getting rid of the fake distress .

Anyone got pics of succefully dyed jeans?

[ikidomari]

so if rit dye ends up rather purplish, can anyone vouch for dylon? how does that end up?

[keri]

my rit was not purplish, it was a flat charcoal when it came out. you can get rid of the purplish thing by doing multiple dyes, most black dyes are simply concentrated, purple, blue or red.

[asleepfordays]

So, for the last 2 years, I've been wearing a pair of Levi's Premium Ultimate Bootcut. When I bought these they were overdyed to the point where the pretty much looked black and after 2 or 3 washes faded to a nice but still dark as hell indigo. It seems that's over for this season, I haven't been able to find any massively overdyed (as my Levi's were) as of late, especially because I still favor a bootcut (i wear boots), and nobody carries a heavy duty bootcut anymore.

So, what I'm thinking about doing is going for a raw Japanese denim and dying them myself. Does anybody know a good method and/or brand of dyes to dye ones own denim with?

I'm used to wearing womens denim because of my small size (27 waist) and i like wearing my jeans pretty tight. Anyone got any advice on a masculine looking (no crazy fades or pocket stitching) womens Jap denim line?

Thanks

-

Kevin

[Double D]

Eh? There's plenty of good lines without resorting to women's jeans, you're at least as big as me. Both Skull and Samurai do great jeans that will fit your waist size.

[__3xL]

shut the fuck up - HOME ALONE ? do it do it do it do it !!! OVER DYE THEM !!!

you are WAYYYY COOL with your jeans bleeding everywhere !!! MAD FUCKING COOL !

great first post ... this is supertalk ( superFUTURE ) not corner store rit dye group of 8 year olds doing a home ec fucking project ....

sorry minya and tweedles - Im going thru a thang .. AND Im intoxerctaed ..

stressing ..

[Neilfuji]

if you looking for as solid cut, Kato goes down to a 25 waist on all our styles x/s in the Jackets

Neil

NO 3, relax a bit, the world is made up of a lot of different people with views and styles of there own

[asleepfordays]

great first post ... this is supertalk ( superFUTURE ) not corner store rit dye group of 8 year olds doing a home ec fucking project ....

sorry minya and tweedles - Im going thru a thang .. AND Im intoxerctaed ..

stressing ..

you're a dick

[Superstar]

you're a dick

hush hush hush little baby.....

- if you want help, you dont want to act smart....

be humble, and the gods of denim will speak...

[Neilfuji]

hush hush hush little baby.....

- if you want help, you dont want to act smart....

be humble, and the gods of denim will speak...

and you're one of these gods? :D