DIY: Tie-dyeing with bleach.

 

I took a light blue cotton dress and gave it a fun and funky new look with a little bleach dying! I intend to wear this as a swimsuit cover up when it warms up this summer. I'm pretty pleased with the result, although it turned out different than I was expecting. Below are the steps to do your own at-home tie-dyeing with bleach!  

What you need to begin:

Clothing item of your choice (100% cotton works best)

A bucket or large bowl

Bleach

Vinegar (any kind will do)

Rubber bands
Rubber gloves

1. Roll up your piece of clothing and secure sections tightly with rubber bands. Do this in whatever design or pattern you prefer! (I did some research to figure out how to achieve the desired tie-dye pattern I wanted.)
2. Mix 1 part bleach to 4 parts water in your bucket or large bowl. Diluting the bleach helps reduce the likeliness of damaging your garment. Also, it is recommended that you wear gloves while handling bleach to protect your skin.
3. Submerge clothing in bleach solution and let soak for 5-8 minutes. I periodically stirred mine around with a spoon but this is not a requirement.

As you can see, after several minutes the dye in the clothing starts to saturate the bleach solution. This means it's working!

4. Remove garment from bleach solution and rinse thoroughly with water without removing rubber bands.
5. In another bowl, or the same bowl as before after being rinsed thoroughly, combine equal parts vinegar and water and submerge garment in this new solution. The vinegar will neutralize the bleach and stop the tie-dyeing process. Allow to soak for approx. 10 minutes.

6. Remove garment from the vinegar solution and rinse thoroughly with water. Remove rubber bands and continue to rinse to get any remaining bleach or vinegar out of the garment. Let your clothing dry completely and it is ready to be washed and worn!