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Make Quick & Dirty Tie Dye

Tie dye has made a fierce comeback this season – though for us, it had never really left. We had our first official #sundayfunday tie dye experiment a couple of years back, and it was glorious. It’s a ton of fun, and there’s so many different ways you can do it.

There’s the classic rainbow spirals, but you can also do something a lot more subtle and just stick to one colour, or do an ombre fade. The key is to follow your heart and let your imagination go buck wild.

We’re imparting our tie dye wisdom and sharing a couple of hacks we’ve learned over the course of our experimentation. You can totally go the traditional tie dye route, meaning get a kit and hang tight for 24 hours while your masterpiece dries and sets. Or, you can take the quick and dirty approach like we did this time around.

We’re standing by our LGBTQ friends this PRIDE weekend, so we wanted to show our support with rainbow colours and tie dye seemed like the perfect way to go. We picked out three different white pieces of clothing – shoes, shorts and socks – and worked some magic.

Rubbing Alcohol
Spray bottle
Sharpies or markers
Tape (to cover anything you want to remain white)
White clothes of your choosing

All you need to do is doodle on a white item with markers, spray it with rubbing alcohol and let it sit until it’s dry – the colours bleed really well to create a tie dye effect. We told you this was quick and dirty.

Some tips:

Don’t forget to use tape to cover any parts of the item you want to keep white.
Leave a bit of space between your colours to allow for them to bleed.
Pair colours side by side that mix really well together – for example, blue and yellow create green once they bleed, so they’re a great pair.
Different fabrics will react differently to the alcohol spray. Some fabrics will result in a lot of colour bleeding, and some won’t. We recommend testing out the reaction before you use the markers on your whole item to determine how close you should position your designs.
Depending on the fabric of your white item, you may need to do multiple rounds of alcohol spray. If after the first round you don’t have the desired effect you’re after, do another round. Continue until you’re happy!