Q&A for How to Tie Dye with Bleach

To get the 60's spiral effect, lay your shirt flat on a table; I like front side down because the spiral looks better on the other side. Place a fork in the middle of the shirt and turn the fork, twisting the fabric as you go, until you end up with a small, flat spiral of fabric. Now hold it together with rubber bands, across the middle top to bottom, left to right, and diagonally; it should look like pie slices. Wet the shirt in diluted bleach just a few minutes, then take off the rubber bands and rinse all of the bleach out. Voila, a spiral. If using colored dye, dip and hold about 1/2 of the shirt in one color, then 1/2 in another color.

Bleach removes dye, and it makes the color of the fabric lighter. If you’d like it to change to a different color, like orange, for example, you can dye the fabric you bleached to that color.

You can actually splatter your shirt with bleach prior to dying and washing.

Allow the bleach to sit on the fabric for about 8-10 minutes. You should be able to see the bleach changing the color of the garment within about 2 minutes, but it will take 8-10 minutes for the bleach to really seep into the fabric. If you leave it on much longer, the bleach could damage your garment. Then you can wash your garment.

Yes, the reason you can is because it’s made of natural fibers. Viscose needs a reactive dye just like cotton does to do the job correctly. Bleach is just one of the ways you could tie dye your shirt.

You'd get a lighter shade of purple to white, depending on how much bleach you used.

Rinse out the shirt in cold water, then leave your shirt out to dry for about 12-24 hours before moving it into the wash. Also, when washing, put your cycle on gentle cold-wash (if you have it) and repeatedly check!

Yes. Just be sure to wash your scarf after tie dyeing it with bleach. If your scarf is black, beware, as when bleaching black items for tie dye, the tie dye color comes out orange. So, add dye if you would like a different color.

After - you should always was your bleached/dyed products after doing the activity. This will stop the odour and irritation on skin.

You can use any bleach. A good bleach to start off with is 3%. It is strong enough to bring out some colour in your desired material but doesn't fully get rid of every colour. If you are bleaching a black or purple garment (really anything dark), you could use 14%, which is extremely strong.

Yes! Stay away from polyesters as the results are unsatisfactory and in some cases don't show up. Bleach dying is very fun and bleach should bring out the whole colour spectrum on a material such as viscose/rayon.

It is fine if there is a logo on the shirt/desired fabric. However, be aware that it may fade the logo.

Not really. It will most likely feel more comfortable, but that's about it.

Use the crumple method. Basically, you just scrunch the shirt randomly and rubber band it in various places.

Most likely it will turn even whiter like a snow white.

Although you can make it work, it is not recommended, since tie-dyeing with just bleach is best. It's also tricky to get it in the exact same spots that you bleached.

Yes, it will turn a sort of peachy colour but bleach is unpredictable and it mostly depends on what type of bleach you use.

It will most likely become a lighter shade of blue or even a white. Although, bleach is sort of unpredictable and the colour also depends on what bleach you use.

Yes because if so, then this method will work better. Of course, you have already wet the shirt by adding bleach and washing it but the water will make this work even better than it would if you did it with a dry shirt.

Bleach is an acid and most dyes are alkaline. They neutralize each other and will not work if put together. The bleach will simply remove the dye color as you try to add it to the garment. The best technique will be to apply the bleach with a syringe or brush if you want to keep some color in the garment.

It will become really light blue, because bleach makes things whiter. It will change color in the same way as adding white paint to turquoise paint.

It will become a lighter shade of pink.

It's the black dyes used for the jeans, it strips most of the black dye but leaves behind a reddish-brown color. this happens with most black clothes in general as well, not just jeans.

Rinse out excess bleach from the garments before washing them together. You risk excess bleach damaging your designs when you wash them together. Adding some washing or baking soda (about a half cup) will help neutralize the bleach.

T-shirts for any tie dye project need to be 100% cotton to have the best effect. A 50/50 shirt has a mix of polyester with cotton. Synthetic fibers do not absorb dye and will not bleach out, as they are not made of fine fiber strands.