Question regarding "Dyed" Fabric

[Former_Member]

As a general rule - I make all my items with 100% cotton or organic bamboo - just because I like those fabrics. My question is (and this may be stupid- sorry)- are all of these fabrics that are a color (not plain white) definitely "dyed"? Or - is dying one way to color a fabric and some of mine may have been done differently? Does that make sense? I don't have anything screen printed or painted, etc. It is just normal either solid colored or patterned fabric. I'm asking because of the possible exemptions and trying to see if I'm using all stuff that will hopefully be exempt.

Thanks!!

[Former_Member]

I'm trying to find info on dyed yarn, but I thought I had read that we are now exempt. There are so many rumers flying around now.

[Former_Member]

Wait here it is!
http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/prhtml09/09120.html

[wildhare]

There are various naturally-occuring colors of cotton, so you CAN get cotton in colors that aren't dyed. The colors are soft and earthy, and include olivey-greens, terracotta-ish oranges, and various shades of brown to rust. Since the industrial age, cotton growers have bred for long fibered, white cotton, so the natural colors were almost lost. Back about 20-25 years ago, a botanist/fiber artist tracked down some wild cotton plants in Central America and the US southwest that still had the colors, and began the work of bringing the natural colors back. In recent years, these natural colored cottons have become commercially available.
Bamboo yarns and fabrics are not as "organic" as you might think, since they are really rayon made from bamboo pulp rather than wood pulp. The process is chemically intensive, and not all that green. The only "naturally colored" or non-dyed bamboo that I'm aware of is the black diamond bamboo, which is colored by heating the fiber until it scorches and therefore turns black.

[wildhare]

Oh, I should also add that wool and other animal fibers are available in a nice pallette of natural, undyed colors. I have five undyed colors of both sheep fiber and llama yarn in my shop. Here's a sampler of the natural sheep wool:
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=20618433

[Former_Member]

Hmmm... thank you for the information. I am actually still looking for a little bit simpler answer... are all colored cotton fabrics "dyed"? For example, a purple cotton t-shirt. I know it's not naturally occurring - but is "dying" the process used to make it purple? I know it sounds silly - I'm just trying to make sure that I understand what is meant by dyed fabric.

[wildhare]

Fabrics can be dyed or printed on. If you have a fabric that is lighter on one side than the other, it was printed. If the design doesn't show at all, or only faintly, and is slightly raised on the front, it was probably silk-screened or was a heat-applied image. If the color is the same on both sides, it was probably dyed. Dyeing can be done at different times in the cycle of production. The raw fiber can be dyed before the yarn for the fabric is spun - if your fabric is flecked or heathery looking (like some men's grey t-shirt), then it was probably dyed in this fiber stage. Often, the yarn is first spun and then dyed before the fabric is made. This is the case for plaids and checkered fabrics. Some fabrics are woven from undyed yarns and then dyed. And finally, you will sometimes find garments that are first sewn and then dyed (think tye-dyed t-shirts, acid-washed jeans). So there are a lot of different ways to get that t-shirt purple...

Oh, and there are different types of dyes and inks. For cotton, the preferred low impact dyes are fiber reactive dyes, which chemically bond the colors to the fiber so they don't bleed or wash out. There are also disperse dyes, universal dyes, and all manner of textile inks, some of which has plastics in them, but inks are rarely used to create a solid colored fabric.

Does that help?

[Former_Member]

It helped me! That was really interesting. Iv'e been sewing all my life and never really studied all that.

[Former_Member]

Unless the cotton says "color grown" and is any color besides a sort of cream color, it has been dyed AND/OR bleached.

If Bamboo is anything but absolutely white, it has been dyed.

wools and other animal hair fibers (alpaca ooooooh) come in a LOT of natural colors, but I would not presume it was undyed or unbleached UNLESS it specifically said so.

I've been drooling over the selection of organic unbleached undyed baby alpaca yarns... but can't buy them any time soon.

[Former_Member]

If the color is THROUGH the fabric (like soaked into the fibers) than a DYE was used. (that's the definition of dye actually. Batik and tye dye are methods by which dye can make a pattern in the fabric.)

if the color is on the SURFACE of the fabric, it is pigment based, and has been printed. (for example color whether or not there is a design, on one side but not the other, would be pigment and and more like paint and NOT a dye.)

I actually took a couple "fiber arts" courses in college... would LOVE to take more.

[Former_Member]

"it was probably silk-screened or was a heat-applied image."


and if it is silk screened or heat applied it is not exempted. for now.

silk screened might not be a threat, but i know that there was a lot of talk about the fabrics with the raised patterns, that phthalates are used in that process to make the designs flexible.



this was awesome info... by the way, gals. very cool. i've learned waaay to much here in the past month.

[Former_Member]

YES! This was the type of info I'm looking for. So - printed fabric... a design on one side that shows through on the other...is this likely to be exempt? Or do you think we'll need to have our printed fabrics tested? I'm talking about all cotton fabrics right bought from a bolt. NOT a screen printed item.

Thanks all you fabric gurus. Like hula said - I've been sewing a long time but never had to learn so much about the actual fabric before. But, I find it completely interesting and am so thankful for all the resources here on the board!

[Former_Member]

my opinion, would be that printed or dyed fabrics would be safe... inks and dyes no longer use leads.

so, no, you wouldn't need to test printed fabric, if it's truly printed.


some fabrics, on the bold are heat applied and/or screen printed. so, be careful. it it has texture, it's most likely one of those, and may have phthalates.



honestly, i think in the next year, all fabrics will be brought to CPSIA compliance, no matter how they are treated. for now, we have to be careful... and look for labels... they will start to show up, EVERY WHERE.

[Former_Member]

EDIT:

some fabrics, on the BOLT are heat applied and/or screen printed. so, be careful. it it has texture, it's most likely one of those, and may have phthalates.

[Former_Member]

Wow--go 'head wildhare. Great information. I heard a rumor from an old quilter--she said that alot of the reds in fabrics were either once(or perhaps still are) made from a process that uses lead---is this true?

[Former_Member]

Ok.... I've just been to the Jacquard site and they have easy link sot CPSIA/MSDS for those of us who need need NEED that info (*coff coff*) and I looked at Carmine Red and Fuschia. It doesn't specify on the MSDS how large a container is being described (unless I'm missing it in plain site LOL), but their smallest container of dye is 2 ounces and it says it contains less than 50ppm lead. If that's a 2-ounce jar I can use to dye 10 shirts, I'm not AT ALL worried about the reds here.

That said, industrial dyes are another thing entirely. Some reds did at one time contain lead, although how much I don't know and when the specs were changed (if ever - might've been negligible) I also don't know.

But for me, as a tie-dyer, I am TOTALLY OK with "dyed fabric" being exempt. If only "dyed onesies with metal snaps" and "dyed bibs with velcro" were for sure OK, but working on that one. :-))

And yes, dye is what goes THROUGH the WHOLE fiber and fabric; screen printing is another story entirely, and outside my personal purview. (And probably out of my store tomorrow - shop fast. :-/)

[Former_Member]

I actually wrote about different organic cotton yarns here:
http://mybutterflydesign.blogspot.com/2008/09/organic-cotton.html

With more companies coming up with different brands, I will need to update this soon.

[Former_Member]

This is great info!! Thanks

[wildhare]

Below is a link to the business of the woman I spoke about in my first post (her name is Sally Fox) who helped bring natural colored cotton back into the marketplace. She's a committed environmentalist -- her products (yarn, spinning fiber, etc.), are organic, the colors are naturally occuring, so this might be a good supply source for sellers out there looking for organic, dye free raw materials.

http://www.vreseis.com/

[Former_Member]

Generations: the PPM is "parts per million" so no matter the size of the container the PPM of any substance will remain the same.

(Per each million parts, there are X part of Y substance.)

I USED TO know the math for all this.

[Former_Member]

ittybitty, even back in the day, it was realized that Lead wasn't very useful or helpful in fabrics/dyes...

even if it is used as a mordant (and it's a crappy one, there are cheaper better ones) it generally comes out in the first washing.

No matter how old that fabric is, if it's dye, and was washed ONCE the lead is probably totally gone.

[Former_Member]

according to historic rumor, the RedCoats coats contained lead in the dye or mordant. (source of the story is usually neither historian nor fiber artist/fiber historian.)

At the various times this historic rumor has been tested, it turned out that using the lead with the particular dye, made the result LESS satisfactory... the resulting dye job was blotchy and LESS colorfast.

[Former_Member]

Now, it's possible the BUTTONS on those British "shoot me" coats, contained high amounts of lead...which if kept in storage over many years might be detectable in adjacent fabric.

[Former_Member]

"Generations: the PPM is "parts per million" so no matter the size of the container the PPM of any substance will remain the same."

Thanks, Trinlayk. Actually, I think I knew that and totally spaced! It's helpful to have other Etsians here to help keep me straight. :-)

[Former_Member]

There are several different kinds of dyes. There is the fiber reactive dye that is used for only natural fibers. This is the dye that most tie-dyers use - Jacquard/Procion being the main dyes here.
I contacted the manufacture of the dyes and they are totally compliant.
Aside from that, any metals in the dye are washed out. The dye works by way of a chemical reaction that happens and it becomes part of the fiber itself, everything else comes out in the wash.

Then there are the industrial dyes that are used for large batches of fabric or clothing. Depending upon the fibers of that fabric, the contents of the dye can vary.
This is where it gets tricky. Synthetic fibers do not take dye well and so what we have is a surface dye (like Rit dye), not a fiber bonding dye. While it may look like the color goes through, it is really just a very fine layer on top of the fabric.
It is said that the metals in this process also wash away. But I wonder about that since this is dye is more like house paint and WILL wear off.

If you want a purple childrens shirt- and you want to be certain that there is no lead, it is best to get it white, in 100% cotton and use Procion dye to dye it.