Outfit: Dye Another Day

by Helen Mae - 08:30

Well, here we are again - another day, another dying experiment! You might just barely recognise this dress from this post in which the polka dots were white... well here is the story behind what happened.

Because I don't have a washing machine in my flat, I sometimes take washing to my mum's house when I go for a visit. I know, she is the best. Sometimes I have enough of my own washing to do a load just with my clothes, and sometimes my clothes get put in with the rest of the family's. On this particular occasion I ended up leaving this dress behind when I went back home, and the next time I came over to visit it was blue. Just in a splotchy, accidental kind of way. Now I am in no way casting aspersions on any particular family member who might have been doing the washing at the time, especially as I know how lucky I am to be able to do my washing (or in this case have my washing done) at my parents house in the first place.

Well, I thought about buying a new and un-blue version of the same dress but rather than admit immediate defeat (and after my reasonably successful previous dyeing endeavour) I decided to have a go at dying the remainder of the dress blue to match. I took myself along to the shops and picked out a dye in the closest shade of blue that I could find to the colour transfer - in this case Dylon's Ocean Blue. In the first instance I decided to try it with just one of the small packets of dye, which I think strictly speaking wasn't really enough for an item this size. Nevertheless, it did a pretty decent job of evening out the colour and I considered just leaving it as it was before deciding to buy a second packet of the dye to see if I could get it looking perfect.

So, two dying sessions later (and erm, apparently I made the water too hot and shrunk the dress slightly), I am pleased to say the polka dots are now evenly blue all over and no one will be any the wiser about any alleged colour transfering incidents. I won't tell if you won't!

And by the way, yes - it was very cold taking these photos! It was a beautiful sunny day but still, these were taken in February. Just in case anyone is concerned, I was indeed wearing a coat (my Hell Bunny Elvira coat to be specific - more photos here).

Here is the final side-by-side comparison of the new version of the dress with the original. I think it came out looking pretty good, if I do say so myself! Here's to more clothes dyeing adventures in the future.

Wearing:

Dress - C/O Dolly and Dotty (altered) (original post here)

Cardigan - charity shop | Hair flowers - Primark | Bracelet - gift

Shoes - Deichmann | Coat - Hell Bunny via Rock Collection

Stockings - What Katie Did