How to ice dye

Supplies needed for ice dye

Usually, when people are ice dyeing, they use powdered dye called MX fiber reactive procion dye. This is what I use and it is a professional grade dye that gives you permanent vibrant results as long as you don't bleach your shirt or leave it out in the sun.

You'll need to pre-soak your shirt in something called soda ash solution. This is water with sodium carbonate dissolved in it at a ratio of one cup of soda as per 1 gallon of water. Soak your shirt for about 20 minutes and then hand wring it before applying dye.

Folding for ice dye

A common way that people like to fold their T-shirt when ice dyeing is to just crumple it, to get organic watercolor results. I like to lay a piece of fabric called polyester fleece under my shirt before folding it in order to get smoother results with the dye flow.

Tall scrunches with fleece

I'll grab several bunches of shirt and pull it up and then smoosh it all together so that it's nice and snug before being put into a basket. Generally, I like to have 5 to 7 peaks of fabric on the shirt, for the density in the design that I like.

Rack vs Muck

Next, I put the shirt that's been folded with the fleece into a basket that allows for the ice to melt and drain through. So, the excess dye and water will drip off and the shirts not going to sit in a puddle. Sometimes people don't use a container that drains, and when they do that it's called ice dyeing "in the muck."

How much ice to use

Next, I add an amount of ice that is almost as tall as the item is that I'm dyeing. That's my general rule of thumb for how much ice to use. I put the ice on first and I don't sprinkle on any soda ash anymore. 

This something I used to do but I have discovered that I prefer the results of the way the dye flows through the shirt without extra soda ash sprinkled on the top.

Ice dye color splitting

For the shirt, I'm trying out a new color from Jacquard products called Black Opal. It's formulated for ice dye in mind. They've added a few component colors together, into one jar. The powder will split into different colors as the ice is melting and pushing the dye through the fabric.

Some powdered fiber-reactive dyes contain multiple pigment molecules. When ice melts, the water flow can separate these molecules on the fabric, creating color splitting. This is why colors like Deep Purple, Raven, and Peacock Blue often break into unexpected reds, blues, or greens.

Dye placement

I like to sprinkle the dye over the ice in clusters rather than making it evenly spread out over all of the ice. You can experiment with sprinkling it in different patterns to see what you like. If you're using more than one color, you can usually get great results by alternating bands of dye color.

Flow change with incline

Before leaving the ice and the dye to melt and set, I usually like to prop up one end of the basket to create an incline. This uses gravity to change the direction of flow through the shirt. It's fun to experiment with different angles to see how it affects the final flowing lines. Some of my favorite tools for creating inclines are mega blocks that my kids no longer play with.

Batch time

This is what the ice dye set up looks like after the ice has melted. it took about 8 hours to full melt in my cool basement. Wait for the shirt to sit for about 24 hours, from the time of setting it up, before rinsing. This is called "batch time" and allows for the dye molecules to permanently bond to the natural fibers.

Rinse the dye out

After 24 total hours of sitting, after setting up the ice to melt, I rinse the shirt. I toss it in my utility sink and spray it with cold water until it runs mostly clear. It will bleed off blue dye for a long time, do you don't need to worry about blue tinged water for the initial wash out.

I rinse with hot water for a few minutes to further encourage excess dye to bleed out of the shirt. With my tall rubber kitchen gloves, I aggitate the shirt in a small amount of water. This part is enjoyable because I get to see the vibrant colors for the first time.

Ice dye results

After washing and drying on hot, in my normal home machines, here's what the shirt looks like! Black Opal is a beautiful dye color for ice dye. You can use this straight out of the jar, without needing to use other colors with it. The blue dye travels father than the reds and yellows, so there is a nice multicolor effect.