feffertim

I bought some beautiful batik fabric at the quilt expo recently and the instructions say to pre wash in warm water before using to remove any excess wax and dye using synthrapol. The instructions on the synthrapol bottle says to use very hot water, hence my dilemma. If I use very hot water will it damage the beautiful fabric, if I use warm water, will the synthrapol not work. Any advice will be welcomed.

quiltstringz

Do you have a website for the place you bought the fabric from? If so I think I would email them and see what they say. No other idea as I have never done this but will be watching the string to see others experiences

nyleve

Very hot tap water will work well and will not hurt your fabric...I always hand wash my Batik's using synthrapol.

Scissor Queen

They use extremely hot water to remove the wax from the fabric in the first place.

Prism99

Synthrapol requires hot water. For prewashing fabric, though, you might be better off using Retayne (which also requires hot water). Retayne sets dyes; Synthrapol suspends unset dyes in the water so they can be washed away (instead of settling into other fabrics as bleeds).

Be aware that front loaders do not use enough water for these products. If you have a front loader, you might want to use your kitchen sink and some rubber gloves (to agitate the fabrics) instead.