Ice Dye & Geode Tie Dye 

Soda ash water stays good forever. Just keep a lid on it so it won't evaporate. If you happen to put an item in there that releases dye, you can put a white item in to see if it will soak up the dye molecules.

Yes, some colors are way more potent than others! If you are ordering from Dharma, they will indicate which colors need difference ratios to be at full strength.

Crushed ice melts faster and spreads dye more softly. Big cubes melt slower and give stronger separation between colors. Both can work, it depends on the effect you want.

Dye that didn’t bond gets washed away. Dull results can come from under-batching, low soda ash, or not enough dye powder in the first place.

Many black dyes are blends of other pigments. As the ice melts, the components separate, creating outlines of blue, red, or green. This is normal and often desirable.

100% cotton or rayon usually gives the best results. Cotton/poly blends can work but won’t absorb color evenly. Avoid anything labeled “colorfast.”

You can, but it’s risky. Using heat or breaking up the ice early might reduce detail and cause uneven saturation. Slow melts usually give cleaner flowy lines.

I usually get my fiber reactive dye from Dharma Trading Co. They have many kinds of dye, so make sure you're looking at fiber reactive procion dye.

I love the way ice slowly pushes dye through the fabric, by gravity, creating organic patterns. It looks more like something that would occur in nature.

It helps the item batch the full 24 hours so excess dye has time to exhaust. Then, rinse with cold water until it runs mostly clear. That helps the white areas stay clean.

The cold mist method is a process I use to layer color into dry, tied shirts using powdered dye and a misting nozzle, with cold water. 

Procion dyes take about 24 hours to fully set, at room temp. If you use heat, you can speed up batch time. Blues usually turn out better with full batch time of 24 hours.

Even with added effort, they tend to stay on the surface or miss areas under the sinew. I often black or orange to help reach the areas they miss.

Soda ash is what makes the chemical reaction happen, that makes the color permanent on your shirt.

If the ice melts too fast, like within an hour, you can lose detail and get washed out areas. Slow it down to get more even results.

Overlapping complementary colors makes muddled colors. For example, red next to green will make a dark brown.