Dyeing Herve Leger Another Color!
Whether it's because you have a really stubborn stain on a pale Herve Leger, or just because you wish the dress was in a different color, some of us have wondered if it were possible to dye Herve Leger. Well, you're finally going to find out! 🙂
I have to say that dying Herve Leger was not a hassle-free process. It's definitely troublesome. There are things to watch out for, and a few unexpected surprises. Read the full article if you are thinking of doing this!
Materials Needed for Dyeing:
Bucket - Get a much bigger one than the one that I used, unless you're dying something smaller like a top or skirt. A too small bucket like mine can cause uneven dyeing.
Herve Leger dress to be dyed
RIT powder dye
Some sort of stick(s) for mixing - I used two barbecue skewers.
One plastic/styrofoam cup
Bleach to clean up afterwards
Rubber gloves - I didn't have these, but these would have been wonderful!
So... on to the steps! We basically followed the bucket directions specified on the dye box:
Step 1: Mix Dye
Mix one cup of hot water with half of the powder (0.5 oz). Stir well. It's good to use a throwaway cup, as dye is going in it!
Step 2: Mix the Dye Bath
Pour 1.5 gallons of hot boiled water into your bucket. Then stir in your mixed dye from the cup. Stir the bucket. The bucket that we used was really too small for a heavy Herve Leger dress. If it had allowed more room, our dye results would have been better.
Step 3: Wet the Herve Leger in plain hot water.
All of these little steps will affect how even the dye job turns out.
Step 4: Submerge the Herve Leger into the bucket.
Step 5: Rinse
Start by rinsing the Herve Leger in warm water, and then steadily transition to cold water. Finally, wash the dress with light detergent. Rinse until the water is running clear. This was the most aggravating part of the process. It took forever for it to stop running slightly pink. It is best to do this in a white tub, so you can see what the color of the water is. Don't worry, it won't dye your tub, if you wash it immediately afterwards with a little chlorine.
Step 6: Dry
Throw it into the dryer! Easiest step! We put this into the dryer on high heat for about 45 minutes, since the dress was drenched.
The result:
Certain parts of the dress did not change color. The cool thing is that all the tags remained their original color. This is probably due to the fabric composition of these tags. The bad part was that the whole zipper, and threading did not change color either. This does not look good, and if the dress had lots of individual banding, this could pose as a problem as well. Also, because the dress is stretchy, when you stretch the material, you can see tiny tiny wee spots of light pink, instead of bright fuschia pink. The color does not look as rich as a Herve Leger that was manufactured fuschia pink.
Amazingly, the stretch and integrity of the fabric was not damaged, in spite of the exposure to such high heat.
This dress had some really bad permanent stain spots. See what the dye did to disguise it!
So, what did I learn from this? In my opinion, if the Herve Leger doesn't have horrible permanent stains, don't dye it! The original beauty of the dress is really hard to trump. The process is not simple, and the results can be unexpected. And, don't dye the dress an entirely different color; the threading and zipper will remain the original color.