Overdyeing One Dress into Five Colours

From bride, bridesmaid to wedding guest—here’s how to upcycle and overdye the same dress over and over again for every occasion. We took one dress and dyed it white to yellow, yellow to pink, pink to wine, and finally blue. Supplies: Synthetic Polyester Dress Rit Dyemore for Synthetics Stainless Steel Pot for Dyeing Measuring Spoon + Cups Hanger Salt Dish Soap Rubber Gloves Tongs Time: 1 Hour Difficulty: Beginner Instructions: Prewash your dress and leave damp. Fill dye pot with enough hot water (just below 200F) for your dress to move freely, roughly three gallons. Add one tsp of dish detergent to help promote level dyeing. When dyeing over an existing color, keep in mind the principles of color theory. For example, overdyeing a yellow dress with blue dye will give you green undertones. If possible, we suggest doing a swatch test with a scrap piece of fabric. For this project, we used the following colors: Overdyed White with Daffodil Yellow. Overdyed Yellow with Super Pink. Overdyed Pink with Royal Purple. Overdyed Purple with Sapphire Blue. Wearing rubber gloves, shake Rit bottle really well. Pour half a bottle (1/2 cup) of dye into dyebath and mix well. Immerse damp dress into dyebath and stir continuously for 20 minutes with tongs. With tongs, move your dress back and forth and up and down to ensure even coverage. 8. When desired color is achieved, remove dress from the dyebath. The longer the jeans remain the dyebath, the darker the color will be. (Remember: color will appear lighter when dry.) 9. Rinse under warm water then gradually cool water. 10. Machine wash your dress with an old towel in warm water with mild detergent. Rinse and dry. TIP: If the garment you are planning to dye has a light solid color and you are looking to dye it a darker color, then all we recommend doing is following the standard instructions for how to use Rit All-Purpose Dye (if dyeing cotton, linen, silk, wool, nylon, ramie or rayon) or Rit DyeMore (if dyeing garments that have more than 35% polyester, acrylic or acetate). If you are looking to: (a) dye a dark solid garment a lighter color or (b) completely change the color of a garment from one solid color to another (such as from purple to blue), then follow our instructions on how to change the color of a garment. If you are dyeing something with a print or logo, the color chosen for overdyeing will mix with the existing color(s) in the fabric and create new colors. In other words, the rules of color mixing apply. When selecting a color, think about how it will mix with the colors in the pattern. For example, if you were to dye an item that has a pink flower pattern with a blue dye, the pink flowers will turn purplish (blue and pink make purple) while the rest of the fabric will dye blue. Even if you were to overdye the patterned garment with a dark color, you may find that the color will appear lighter along the patterned area.