Hi! (I know you're bussy so take your time with answering this ask :3) I just bought a decoloured and stained btssb little princess coat in beige (it actually looks like the white one that became beige based on the lace/shade) because it was fairly cheap and I've always liked it but I was considering dying it wine (because of the stains). How could I do it for a 90% wool (mossa?) And 10% nylon fabric and how do I prevent shrinking? Also is there a way I could "save" it and get a similar colour?
The first step I’m going to recommend before you do anything is giving it a 4-5 hour soak in hot water and oxiclean, because I’ve seen that do amazing things to stains. You might be able to bring it all the way back to white. Take care when you do any hot water baths with wool, since wool+heat+soap+agitation=felt.
If you’re serious about dyeing this coat, however, doing an extremely careful hot-water soak in Oxi is going to be a good first step, because you’re going to have to do a hot water soak a few times in the dying process, so it’s worth first seeing if you can save it with some careful washing, before you go all out with the dye. Two consecutive soaks in oxiclean took my AP Fairy Princess JSK from gray to white.
Because wool REALLY wants to turn into felt, expecially a high-blend wool like that, here’s what I’d suggest:
Since I always have both on hand, I’d do a 4 hour soak with the regular Oxi, wash and rinse, and then do a second 4 hour soak with Oxi+white. Since I see this recommended so many times and it drives me nuts, let’s stick some bold text here: Oxiclean works because the powder works with water to create a chemical reaction. This reaction only goes on for four hours. There is no difference between soaking something for four hours in oxiclean and soaking it overnight in oxiclean, except that when you soak it overnight you just leave it in dirty water for an additional 8 hours. If you want to soak something overnight in oxiclean, you should dump out all your water and add fresh product every four hours.
So, how to wash wool in hot water without felting it:You’re going to want a bucket (like a medium-sized sterilite bin or a 5 gallon bucket) and a bath tub. Stick your coat in the bucket and cover it with room temperature water. Get every part of it soaked until there are no air pockets. Meanwhile, fill your bath tub ½-¾ of the way full with hot tap water and dump five or six scoops of the regular oxiclean in there. That feels like a WHOLE LOT, but the oxiclean math is one full scoop for four gallons, most bath tubs are 40 gallons, and it’s half full, so you want to go 5 scoops. You can actually go up to 1 scoop for 1 gallon (their top recommended) which comes out about to just dump the whole thing in and see what happens. I’ve found that 5-8 scoops works really well for the average bath tub.
Stir the bath until the oxiclean has all dissolved. Then, take your wet coat out of its room temp water soak, and lay it out on the top of the water. Since it’s wet, it’ll sink and you don’t need to shove it under the water. Now, you have the very difficult job of not touching it for four hours.
When four hours are up, reach into the tub and hold the coat down on the bottom, and then pull the drain. If the water’s too hot for you to touch, just wait until it cools down. The extra soaking time isn’t going to actually clean your coat more, because that reaction’s done, but don’t hurt yourself for the sake of lolita.
Leave the coat on the bottom of the bath tub once it’s drained. This is going to let it drain a little, but it will also let it cool down to room temp, which is the important part. Once it’s not hot to the touch, you can carefully pull it out of the tub (and your bucket from earlier is a fine place to store it for a few minutes), and then wipe out your tub and fill it 6″ or so full with room temp water. Dump in some cool water detergent, dissolve, and then put your (still wet) coat in there. Leave it soaking for a few, then drain it again. Now you can rinse the coat out with cold water. Make sure you get all the soap out, because soap staying in the fibers of your fabric makes your fabric get dirty faster.
Then you just need to dry it flat for however long it takes till it’s dry. Once it’s dry, you can see if you think it still needs to be dyed.
A while back, I did a post about dyeing a cotton skirt with RIT. RIT dye is nice and cheap and works on a wide variety of fabric and is available in your local grocery store.
You can use RIT on wool, but you have better luck using a dye that’s meant for wool only. Different fibers take different kinds of dye. While going the fast and cheap route with RIT will work, you’ll definitely benefit from going the slightly more expensive, slower route on something like this.
The good news is that, unlike other synthetics, nylon takes dye super well. I’ve used petal pink dye on a nylon tulle and had it come out neon fuchsia after 1/3rd of the usual processing time. This means that you need to be concerned that your dye will change color and become brighter than you intended. With only a 10% nylon content, you shouldn’t have to worry too much, but it’s worth noting.
Then you’re going to want to get a small bottle of this detergent and about 2oz of one of these (I’d probably go color 458 or 418). These two will run about $9 plus shipping, which is more than a $3 bottle of RIT, but you’ll be getting a dye that is actually made for wool. (If you’re trying to buy things locally, instead of online, look for Synthrapol detergent and Jacquard acid dyes, but I like Dharma’s product better than either of those).
Dharma has instructions here for how to use their acid dyes. They use wool in that how-to, so it’s pretty similar to what you’d do for your coat. If you don’t have a big enough pot to dye it, it might be worth it to pick up a $10 stainless steel stock pot. The thing about dyeing is that you really don’t want to mess it up, especially when you’re dyeing a $400 coat.
The funky thing about dyeing entire garments is that the individual pieces will all take the dye differently. It’s common for stitching to stay white, ribbons to be lighter or darker, and lace to be lighter or darker when you’re done. The key thing is to follow instructions to get the color to take consistently across each piece. If your lace is then darker and your ribbons are lighter and your lining is still white when you’re done, as long as it’s all even (and your left sleeve isn’t a different color from the right one, and there’s no pale or dark patches) it will look intentional.
Whichever thing you try, de-staining or dyeing, make sure you take some good “before” pictures before you start. Feel free to submit some before/afters to this blog, or tag it, too, because I’d love to see them!
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