Article 04 — All cloth
Will the colour last? Two tests at the counter
Some dyes stay in the cloth. Some leave with the first wash, on your hands, or in the sun. Two tests you can do in the shop, and one at home.
A colour can fail in three ways. It can rub off onto whatever touches it: your skin, a pale sofa, the rest of the wash. It can run in water and bleed into everything else in the machine. And it can fade in the light, slowly, until one side of a curtain is paler than the other.
The trade calls these fastness to rubbing, to washing and to light. A good dyer tests all three. A buyer can test the first two in a minute, with a handkerchief.
What to look for
Rub it with something white.
Dampen a corner of a white handkerchief or tissue and rub it firmly over the cloth, ten times back and forth in one place. Then do the same with a dry corner. A trace of colour on the damp corner from a deep indigo or a red is common; a clear stain on the dry one is not.
Press a wet tissue into it.
Fold a wet white tissue, press it hard into the cloth for half a minute, and look. Colour on the tissue is colour that will run in the wash.
Turn it over.
Cloth dyed as yarn, or dyed as cloth, is nearly as strong on the back as on the front. A print that sits only on the surface shows pale on the back. That is not wrong, but a surface print feels a little stiffer and wears sooner where it is rubbed.
Look along the folds.
Cloth that has sat folded in a bright shop window shows paler stripes along its folds. That is its fastness to light, showing itself before you have bought it.
Once it is home
Wash deep colours on their own the first two or three times, in cool water, inside out. If the rinse runs clear by the second wash, the colour is fixed. Dry them out of hard sun.
Ask the seller
SKYDROTo take to the shop
Will the colour last? Two tests at the counter
Look for
Ask
Tick them off at the counter — ours, or anyone's.
What we do
Every dye is tested against the light. We dye to the record, so the new order matches. Ask for a quote: free swatches of the fabric and shade are sent once your order is finalised, and you can put them through the tests above before you decide.
Ask our team
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