EveryMann

Hello Quilters!

I worked quite a bit with dyes @15 years ago, but this weekend was my first foray into it in quite some time...

Not the most artistic of endeavors, but I chanced across two 100% cotton, navy blue, long-sleeve tactical polo shirts that are new-with-tags, and they would be perfect for work. Here's the rub: these shirts are normally $60, but I paid $8 each because they were on a store mannequin, and the collars are slightly faded due to sun exposure.

No problem, I figured, as I can bust out my old Dharma Trading supplies and dye the shirts to be good as new. The color is a very dark navy--about as dark as navy can be without being black. Thus I opted for Dharma Trading's "Deep Space" fiber reactive procion dye. As it's been awhile, I went to the Dharma site and I followed their tub dye instructions as best as I could:

1) Pre-washed the shirts, albeit new, with 1/4 cup of synthrapol;
2) Mixed 2 tablespoons of the aforementioned Deep Space dye into a slurry, and then added 3 gallons of warm water into my 5-gallon bucket;
3) Mixed in 3 cups of non-iodized salt;
4) Dropped in the shirts and stirred them for @20 minutes;
5) Gradually folded in 1/3 cup of soda ash slurry over a 15-minute period;
6) Let soak while stirring for another hour;
7) Drained dye and added cold water to shirts until the color was almost clear.

I noted that the collars looked great at this point: the dark blue was completely uniform and I was feeling a sense of triumph. When I worked with dyes years ago, the shirts were invariably white to begin with, and I would do batik or tie dye treatments to them. I didn't have my own washing machine back then (rental apartment--no dyes in machine per owner!) and so I would add a bit of sythrapol and hot water to the 5-gal bucket at this stage.

At any rate, I dropped the two nearly-clear-running wet shirts into my washing machine, set if for HOT/max extract/low water level, and in a dour moment, I didn't measure out the 1/4 cup as recommended by Dharma: I think I put in 1/3 cup or so.

After the cycle was done, I took out the shirts, and...the color on the collars had rinsed out to the point where they didn't look appreciably better than when I'd started, some 2 1/2 hours earlier. Womp womp.

Checking the internet for "synthrapol washed out dye," many results led me to this site, although with problems different from mine. I did find a blog that suggested an after wash using 3 tbsp of synthrapol for each 8 pounds of dry product, with as much water in the washing machine as possible. EIGHT POUNDS! Here I put @1/3 cup of synthrapol for *maybe* 1-lb of shirts, with a low wash level.

Would an excessive amount of synthrapol be the culprit here? I don't want to give up just yet, and I would like to give it another shot next weekend. Should I in fact go with just a dollop of synthrapol in the after-wash with a higher water level?

Any/all advice greatly appreciated! Thank you!