Cosplay - Colouring your Wig with iDyePoly

So for my Charizard cosplay I was worried about ordering another wig that it would arrive in time for the convention I was attending.  So I decided to experiment with one of my old wigs and try to make my own.  

A few years ago I wrote about how to use Sharpies to color your wig Cosplay - Colouring your Wig

I"m reusing this very same wig to give it a new transformation.

Dyeing fabrics has been very common on use of natural fibers.  I found iDyePoly which claims it can dye synthetic fibers.  

The instructions call for you to boil your fibers in the dye bath for a half hour, it require good ventilation and suggest you do not reuse the heating vessel for cooking food.  I however didn't follow the instructions exactly.  

I boiled water to activate the iDye then mixed it within a ziplog bag and shoved in my wig.  I wanted a seal container since ventilation suggested fumes.  I left it in a tub and let it marinate in my garage overnight.  Hopefully the more time in a hot solution will equal better saturation since I wasn't keeping it at a constant boil for a half hour.  

Nice coloUr results in the morning.  Now to the rinsing ... ~cough~ in the driveway.  FYI rinse many times, to get the excess dye out (if you're bleeding, it just means you need to rinse more).  And then rinse some more, to help get the smell out.

~brush brush brush~

TaDa!  beautifully colored wig, reusing something i never use anymore, and only spent a fraction of the cost instead of buying a new wig.  

Coffee Wood Stain

Want to give your wood projects some carmel goodness.  Dunk it some coffee for a few hours :)

Dying Lace

It's rather hard to find different colours of lace in the same pattern, and even when you do it's only a select few generic colors.

Well these three up above were actually all came from the same white lace which I have dyed.  It's easier than I thought it would be.

I found these bottles of fabric dye for actualy pretty cheap.  $4 a bottle, but I only used a few drops which means i can get years of use from a single bottle.  Mixed dye with some water in a zip lock bag and let the fabric seep from 30 seconds to overnight (maybe excessive, but it doens't hurt for the strong dark colours).  I used a few drops for light baby colours and a teaspoon for the dark colors.

But you dont need all 4 bottles to create these different tones.  Just like mixing paint, modeling clay, and food dye, you can achieve different tones and colours by messing with colour ratios and mixtures.  Saturation changes can be achieved by changes to time duration.

These shades of pink and red were produced by this single red dye.  By partially dunking in a piece of lace into a dark solution, and quickly diluting it into a bucket of water for the rest of the lace to consume results in the tie-dye effect in the middle lace.  There's a reason they tell you not to pour the dye directly onto the fabric . . . but that little accident showed me how to produce that unique pattern.