Which Dye is Best: A Semi-Scientific Experiment

Wow!! If my Resinsoul wasn't in the process of an intricate face up I'd be tempted to try this! Great experiment!

 

Fabulous Job! I can't wait to see the durability/removal photos! Mods, can we get this up as a sticky when it's finished, please?

 

Thank you soooooo much for this!!
I wish I'd heard of idye sooner! The result looks great! I hope it will also do well in durability test x)

 

Can I start by saying you are my hero right now?

I find there is also massive variation between how different resin dyes as well. My experiences dyeing korean resin have been excellent, (Dearmine, dollndoll, old luts, lati )

But my experiences dyeing Chinese resin have been nowhere near as good. ( paper Sakura, Xaga)

I'm interested to try a piece of Japanese resin, for scientific justice

(Asked mod's to delete my post above as it breaks the flow of thread).

 

O.M.G. The hero we've been waiting for

iDye poly looks AMAZING. I've been struggling with RIT in dyeing my doll, with each attempt failing pretty bad. I feel like every packet I grab off the shelves behaves differently. I googled iDye poly, and read this on the manufacturer's website http://www.jacquardproducts.com/idye.html :

IT MAKES SENSE. OH, IT MAKES SO MUCH SENSE.

Trying not to get too excited, as there might be a drawback. Definitely looking forward to durability and removal tests to see how it fairs. But honestly, if the next RIT test I run fails YET AGAIN, I think I'm going to have to try something new!

 

Perfect! Thank you so much!

Mods, Pretty please make this a sticky!

 

Excellent, sound tests and very useful results. Bravo!

 

Oh my gosh, this is incredible! Thank you so much for doing this!

Looks like I'm going to need to get my hands on some iDye Poly

 

Really helpful thread, and I can sort of see why RIT is a pretty often used dye for dolls even though it does differently on fabric. Thanks for the well documented experiment

 

Definitely a thread to favorite and reference for forever . As I said in another thread, you convinced me to try iDye Poly after all my failed attempts at RIT (after wasting two liquid bottles and four powder packets, I think it's fair to quit the stuff!). After it arrives in a few days, I'll definitely post my result here to confirm/add details to your experiment with this new dye!

As for further experiments, I'm a little curious about the effect of sealants on these dyed pieces. I'm wondering if the dye might leach into the sealants and cloud it somehow? So if you think that's a good idea to test, there's that!

 

Would you be able to test if the iDye Poly leeches into white resin near it?

 

I second this request. Looks like I will need to get some iDye Poly very soon!

 

I got my hands on some iDye Poly in violet/purple, and have an elf ear mod on my table. I'm going to do some tests to see how well the iDye Poly takes to both resin AND epoxy at the same time (ie a modded head).

In the past the RIT dye I've used has taken VERY well to the epoxy and almost not at all to the resin. My hope is that the iDye Poly takes to both surfaces evenly. I shall post my results!

 

Really amazing and informative test! I just hope that I could get some of that iDye-color to try it...

 

This is fantastically scientific!! I have been so curious about the iDye Poly, and how it worked with resin dolls, so thank you very much!
Saving this thread for future reference.

 

I absolutely love this thread!! So well put together and informative, great work - thanks so much for this! Saving for reference!

 

Thank you SO MUCH, Tokoz, for doing this experiment!!! I used the iDye Poly, and it worked WONDERFULLY for me. Currently, my DC Elizabeth is still in pieces, so I won't have a proper strung-together picture til after her faceup/bodyblushing. But still, it worked MIRACULOUSLY.

I did as you advised, and for the skin-tone portion, I first dissolved the whole packet of Brown iDye Poly in a cup of warm water, then added A LITTLE BIT into a large bot of near-boiling water. Not only did the color take VERY FAST and fairly even on the resin, ESPECIALLY THE HEAD, but when I dipped it in the bowl of water to rinse it off, the water practically never changed color. This means that very little dye is required to get the desired effects. I then added more water to the pot, then dumped ALL of the brown and a whole packet of yellow too (I wanted a dark color for her spider body) into the hot water. This time, though the dye still took nicely, I got some dye saturation effects, where some of the yellow dye collected on the top and formed splotches that, as you mentioned, wiped off easily with magic eraser. Still, that's when dipping the pieces in water resulted in much more dye wash-off, and there was definitely a little bit of some contact-dye ruboff that wasn't apparent with the parts dyed in very diluted iDye.

So I guess I'm here to say that A) iDye Poly WORKS! and B) Use small dilutions at a time, to get color without intense bystander staining!

Also, in terms of skin color, the brown turns out very pink-ish. This is good for some sorts of skin tones, but I would recommend trying a mixture with some yellow iDye to achieve a tan with more yellow undertones.

Once again, thank you for enlightening me about the presence of iDye Poly, Tokoz

 

BioniCandy, she looks AMAZING! The color took very well~

 

[MENTION=66599]BioniCandy[/MENTION], she looks terrific! I might have to rethink my decision to paint one of my dolls instead of dying her, with results that nice...

 

This is such a great resource! Thanks so much! I really appreciate the scientific approach too.

 

Thank you so much for doing this!! I definitely know which dye I'm choosing when I dye my dolls.

 

Add me to the list of converts! I had a WS doll that was on the selling block (I just can't bond with WS dolls no matter how much I like the sculpt) so I decided it wouldn't hurt to at least try the iDye Poly.

Holy BUCKETS, this stuff works well. I went from this:



To this:


Yes, I dyed over a faceup. Yes, I am insane. But I'm actually really happy with how it turned out!

A couple of notes from my process:
- Seams are DEFINITELY darker than the rest of him. If that's a concern for you, I'd recommend an all-over sanding.
- The color did come out a bit mottled, but I think that's because the yellow dye I added sort of formed a foam on top of the brown. I'm not sure how to avoid that in the future, but the mottled parts will be cover by clothes, so I'm not bothered.
- BE PATIENT. I cannot stress this enough. Don't try to take the easy way out and dye parts that are still strung together - I tried doing the whole torso at once and one of the hands came off. Unfortunately it was in the pot so long that the bar ended up becoming brittle and snapping, so this guy is one-handed right now ^^
- A regular nail scratch test did nothing to take off the color, but a scratch from the s-hook in one hand did.

If I think of anything else I'll edit the post, but mostly I'm just super thankful for this thread for saving a doll I was really sad to let go of!

 

[MENTION=27296]kaitan[/MENTION] WHOA, dying over a faceup?! That's REALLY interesting, I didn't know you could do that and still maintain the faceup! It's REALLY cool how the details still shine through, but in a very different way! Congrats on getting a doll that you can more easily bond with !

In my trial, I saw some of the details that you did. For instance, though I saw no visible seams with my girl, they lightly showed up after dyeing. I just blushed over them, though!

As for the mottled color, did you use too much dye, as in the whole packets? When I dyed my DC Elizabeth, I first did her skintone portion and used only a LITTLE bit of dye that I had predissolved in a cup; as you can see above, it dyed quite dark, and there was no foam at the top of the pot while the dipped pieces had very little washoff! However, for her spider-body, I did what you did and mixed yellow and brown. Two whole packets full! And that's when the foam happened for me. It COULD be a feature of the yellow dye, but I'm more inclined to believe that the pot was just probably just over-saturated with dye.

Did you try lightly rubbing off that yellow mottling from the foam? I had a bowl of water to rinse each piece, I was very easily able to remove the weird yellowfoam mottling by wiping with a wet magic eraser while it was in the washing bowl.

 

[MENTION=66599]BioniCandy[/MENTION] Thanks! I may do some tweaking to the faceup to even it out some (the whitish parts on the nose and cheeks) but I'm still shocked he came out as well as he did

You know, now that you mention it, I'm pretty sure I did end up supersaturating the pot. Normally I use my much larger pot, which would have had more water for the dye to dissolve in, but this time I used my smaller one and still used the full packet of both colors. The yellowish mottling did come off with a magic eraser, though, so no concerns there.

 

Thank you for this excellent workshop! The detail and controls that you uses throughout your tests are amazing. I'd love to see how an I poly dye would work on a DZ tan resin.

I loved seeing everyone else's dyed dolls in this thread too. They look amazing!

Maybe there's hope for the African American girl that I hope to have. I just bought a DZ Minas in tan skin but didn't think I could airbrush the tan deep enough and permanently enough to give me the look I'm after. . . . But it looks like I Poly would work if I can work up my courage!

Thank you to those who did!

 

[MENTION=66599]BioniCandy[/MENTION], do you have more photos of your Elizabeth? I just picked up a pack each of brown and yellow today for the doll I was previously planning to paint, and am trying to decide which direction I want to go with the colors. Since you've got samples of both, I was hoping to see them.

I'm also curious if doing a gradient/ombre effect with this dye will work, or if it's just too fast and too intense... though I might have to try that one myself! I'll probably be doing the full doll and an incoming body meant as a Siamese cat at the same time (so I can use the same pot of dye for both), so if no one else has experimented with it, I'll post the results of that attempt here as well.

 

[MENTION=27163]vicemage[/MENTION] I have some more on my Project Journal for Arania (link in my signature). I have a bunch of spam pictures that I didn't upload, so if there was a specific detail that you were looking for, I could try looking through all the pictures on my memory card to see if any of them are relevant. If it's a question about colors, what I can say is that the brown dye alone DOES dye a good skin color alone, but it dyes the kind that has pinkish undertones. I didn't realize this, as I was working under yellow light that made it look yellow-tan, but I'd say that in white natural light she looks more pinker than the picture. I definitely recommend working/checking under fluorescent lighting or natural light (like a window) to make sure that the color is exactly what you want! That's when you add yellow dye; the Spider butt in the picture above shows what color I got from using a whole packet of yellow and whole of brown (not recommended to use at all once, work with dilutions!)

A gradient effect definitely works. It's not too fast or intense; you just bob it in for a moment at a time, with parts meant to be darker getting a slightly longer time, and excess can be rubbed off with a magic eraser to lighten areas. I only did it for the area where her human torso fades into her spider body. First I died the whole part with just diluted brown dye (skin color), then I did the gradient by dipping the spider booty in the brown+yellow. Here's a picture of the torso with flash (plz excuse the napkin lint, Lolol):

 

Oh wow, thanks, [MENTION=66599]BioniCandy[/MENTION]! Those pictures are just what I needed to see! I do really love that very dark color you've got on the spider body, so I'm glad I grabbed both the brown and yellow dye packets. And the ombre is lovely, too, just what I'm hoping to manage with the cat's hands and feet. Now I can't wait for her body to get here so I can try this out!

 

Popping in again to report on some news I came across via Tumblr: RIT has recently released a new dye for synthetics, called Rit DyeMore. (Apparently this happened back in April? Huh.)

From their announcement:
"For those of you who have missed our old formula that dyed golf balls, golf discs and lacrosse heads, Rit DyeMore once again allows you to dye these items bright, beautiful colors. And it can dye your 3D printed creations too.

Rit DyeMore requires a higher temperature than our all-purpose dye, so for the best results use the stovetop method. Available in 12 colors, DyeMore can be found in our online store, on Amazon.com and in Hobby Lobby stores."

I don't shop at Hobby Lobby, unfortunately, so the only way I'll be getting my hands on some is online. I plan to make an order within the week and test it on some spare parts I have. I'll report back here with results!

 

Wow this is super awesome!!! Thanks so much for this experiment. I'd love to try dying my severely yellowed Narae from 2005 back to a more pinkish tone, and it seems that iDye poly might do the trick! :3

 

Thank you so much for this resource! I'm fairly new and have been terrified of the possibility of yellowing. This is a great solution for such a simple problem!

 

would anyone whose been able to dye with iDye poly be able/willing to do a removal test with windsor and newton brush cleaner?
i would do it myself but i've no spare parts or the dye (^p ^;;

also which do you guys think would be best for dyeing a doll a slight tan, one of the browns, yellows, oranges, or a mix?
i'm planning on giving one of my bluefairy boys a soft tan once his faceup needs to be redone. ^^

 

Hmmm, RIT Dyemore huh? Now I'm wondering how this new dye compares to iDye Poly, as they seem like they're the same type of dye. It looks like it might be a tad more convenient in the sense that it already comes liquid bottles, so you can more easily work with dilutions of dye by pouring a little at a time. iDye Poly comes in powder-form within water-soluble packets, meant to be used all at once, so it's a bit more work to make dilutions of it. As much as I despise RIT for the suffering it put me through x'D I'd love to know if it has similar/worse effectiveness, along with color comparison. I guess I'll watch out for it in stores, to test out at some point.

But did I read that announcement right???????? "For those of us who missed our OLD formula"? So it's confirmed that the RIT dye that people used for all those successful past dyejobs is officially DIFFERENT from the one that's in stores now???? That would explain all the consistent failures I've had with RIT, along with all the failures I see other people reporting recently. If that's the case, perhaps this info should be posted in the dyeing megathread, that new RIT NO LONGER WORKS, so that it doesn't cause people to mess up their dolls. I know I sure would've appreciated that knowledge !

[MENTION=42012]mangameow[/MENTION] Depends on what undertones you want. You can get a nice, soft tan with just iDye Poly Brown, though it has slightly pinkish undertones. It's not a bad thing or unrealistic tone, it is quite nice. It's just that if you were looking for a more yellowish tone, you would try mixing a little yellow dye with it. If you want a light tan, make sure that you use only a little of the iDye Poly packet at a time, because a little goes a looong way! It dyes deeply with just a little predissolved powder and a few dips, so no need to dump the whole thing in!

 

Mangameow, it's hard to say which color to use for a tan but here's a tip I learned from dyeing wigs. A dye bath will appear very different when viewed in a deep bowl versus just a little bit of dye in a white bowl. So something that looks like a nice brown in a deep bowl may actually have a lot of green in it. So before you literally take the plunge, pour a little bit of your planned dye into a shallow white bowl so you can get a good idea of the dye's true undertones.

Then you like it, I wonder if you might be able to take a Q-tip and rub some dye on the inside of the head cap to see how the dye reacts to your dolls resin. I don't know though since I've never dyed a doll. For those who have more experience with dyes, do you think a Q-tip test would work? Or is a submersed bath the only way to truly see the effect of a dye?

 

I-dye Poly FTW! An awesome thread, thank you Tokoz!

 

I tried iDye Poly using all of the brown pigment package (with a little bit of crimson) using the color intensifier. Now I have a body that matches my Dollshe Amanda Beauty! She dyed very uniformly, and the resin picked up the dye very evenly.



Dents in the resin did dye a bit darker, but I did not notice any dye color difference between resin and the seams. However, I dyed the resin very dark, minimizing differences in resin color, as the resin couldn't really dye much darker than it did. I do caution users that one cannot allow the resin pieces to touch the bottom of the dyebath pot or allow each piece to remain stationary, as tiny clumps of undissolved dye (I suppose one could solve this with a strainer) may stick to the resin otherwise and lead to local discoloration.

Also be careful with how you string your resin pieces--I bent the arm sockets out of shape because the water was so hot (a simmer), and had to reform them under clean hot water afterward.

 

Sorry for the double post, but here is another doll I dyed using a batik (resist dye) technique. The goal was to give her leukoderma, a skin pigmentation disorder, so I used latex masking fluid to cover random parts of her body to prevent staining by the dye. The masking fluid held on wonderfully, although I will note that there was some leakage, especially in areas that had little fluid, but this makes the staining look more natural. It's kind of distracting now, but a faceup and bodyblush will make it look more natural.



I did use a natural skin resin as a base for this, as she has a darker skin tone, and I thought a completely white contrast would be too severe. The dye color for this project used 1/2 the dyebath of brown dye, some more crimson and a little yellow dye, to make the initial stain more orange in color. (The base color--the color the resin initially turns with only a small amount of dye--for the brown color is grayish, and I wanted a color that would be more natural.)

 

WoW, [MENTION=68954]americanseamstress[/MENTION] thank you so much for your review! I was looking for browns that would give a lovely dark skintone, and your Amanda Beauty's color is just perfect!

 

Smaug--make sure you use the color intensifier. I used 1 1/2 packets (it comes in the iDye Poly box).

 

This is the one thing I haven't done to a doll yet. I've removed dye from a doll but not added it. I have a few resin pieces that I might try this on. I need to find out all of the colors they have available.
Thank you for this great information and inspiration.

 

THIS IS AMAZING. THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR GOING THROUGH THIS PAINSTAKING PROCESS!

I've never even heard of most of the stuff you used, but you can bet your sweet tookas I'm going to try some of teh I dye poly on my poor AE Cookie! She'd been previously dyed by someone else but it didn't take very well (RIT dye), and needs a cleaning, but I'm hopeful I can get her the color I want now!

 

http://www.jacquardproducts.com/assets/jacquard-site/support/sds/chemicals/Color Intensifier-SDS.pdf

Here is the link to the SDS. The intensifier (carrier) is only listed as an irritant. I wouldn't eat it.


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Thank you both of you for the advice! I have a built-in ventilator right above the stove, but I fully intend to wear the gas mask that I use for spraying MSC Haha, now I only need to piece the doll together first (the head is ordered, but the body will come from a different company. Hopefully if I order both in WS, they'll take the dye similarly).

 

And I was just wondering if it was possible to use a dye resist to make patterns and other effects! Do you mind if I ask what brand of resist you used, americanseamstress? And maybe your process? Your doll turned out really cool! OwO

 

Yes. It is possible to use dye resist to make patterns--that's what I did, but I did it very loose to look organic. I don't know the brand off the bat, and I'm not somewhere I can check, but it was a liquid latex bought at Michaels. The only drawback for this brand was thin and dried slowly, makin it run.

For the most complete dye resist, I would use two layers (mine was unpigmented masking fluid, but I might used a slightly pigmented formulation to better see the placement). It also ruins your brushes, so be aware!

You dip the masked resin pieces into the dyebath (there is no risk of premature mask removal, even at just under boiling heat), and then ensure that you have given the resin piece a preliminary rinse before removal of masking (to prevent secondary dyeing).

I used a mix of colors, so perhaps my dyebath conditions were different than those originally done in this thread's experiment, but I was able to remove all but the darkest staining of resin pieces by a long soak (15-20min) in 70% isopropanol. The rest could be removed with gentle sanding.

Edit: Frisket is another name for masking fluid
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I've been working toward some particular experiments to expand on this, and got the photos taken today, so I'd like to add them here. These are both to benefit a project of my own, and to help others in the future! These are all with iDye, a roughly equal mix of brown and yellow.

iDye vs Milliput by vicemage, on Flickr
Milliput takes iDye really, really well. I'll still need to cut these pieces open to see how deeply it penetrates, but the color takes quite nicely. That said, it is NOT a match to the way resin takes the color, and anywhere you've sanded will show the color differently. The side of the thick piece that looks a little more purplish, and the bottom of it, had been sanded before dying, and are nicely illustrating the differing colors. (I also discovered a bit of milliput stuck on the edge of a piece, not so much that I noticed it before I dyed it, but enough that I'll have to mask it with a little blushing now.)

iDye vs Resist by vicemage, on Flickr
Masking is not 100%. The top part is using a decent quality watercolor frisket, half with one coat and half with the other. It still allowed bleed-through. It's not as dramatic as the (awesome) dramatic two-tone doll above, and I only did a 30-second dip, but it's definitely got bleed-through. The bottom patch is rubber cement, which was TERRIBLE. So you can mask a doll more precisely than the one above, but it's not going to be perfect.

iDye vs W&N: Light touch by vicemage, on Flickr
Since the OP didn't have any W&N to test with, I decided to give that a shot here, too. This is with a light touch with a cotton swab, attempting to clean up the patch masked with frisket. There's lots of color transfer, but as you can see, the staining's still very much in place on the patch.

iDye vs W&N: Heavy touch by vicemage, on Flickr
And this is with a heavier touch, like what I'd use to actually strip a doll. There's some noticeable lightening, but the dye's pretty stubborn! Still, with patience, a little soaking, a lot of elbow grease and a lot of W&N, there may be a viable alternative to sanding to get it back off the doll. (The frisket patch is almost back to the original color, though there's still a little staining.)

iDye vs W&N: Drips by vicemage, on Flickr
This is just a better look at where the drips ran down the side and lifted color with more of a "short soak" than with any actual rubbing, suggesting that soaking might lift the color.

iDye vs W&N: Milliput removal by vicemage, on Flickr
It doesn't look like it's going to work to take it out of Milliput, though. You can't even see where I attempted to remove the color on the swatch, and a lot less color came up on the swab compared to when I was attempting removal on the resin piece.

And not part of the experiment, just a picture of the dolls I was also dyeing yesterday when I did the experiment! Adet (on the left, the elf) is a Doll-Love God-Enjoy, originally in NS; Liora (right, the cat) is a MNM head on a Soom NS Ace body. (She also has MNM ears and a Bliss tail that were dyed yesterday, but aren't in the photo since I still need to install/fix their magnets.) They're with the same mix of brown and yellow, with a little more of both colors added to the bath before Adet went in.
Adet and Liora post-dye by vicemage, on Flickr