A few months ago, Yahoo featured a story about a woman who dyed all of her clothes black. I’m the type of person who likes to save a few bucks whenever we can, so I was very intrigued.
Apparently, she decided not to buy any clothes for an entire year, and to get by – she simply dyed everything in her wardrobe black. I thought this was a brilliant idea – not only did everything in her closet match, but if she wanted a new outfit, she just had to swap out some accessories.
Her story has lingered in the back of my brain for months now, but I am sad to say that I cannot find her blog. This stinks because I wanted to let her know that she inspired me to “dye vs donate” two of my favorite sweaters.
I am very bad about throwing away clothing – especially really comfy sweaters – so I took a stab at dying my dishwater-gray sweaters back to black. And, I must say, I am thrilled with the results!
If you don’t mind getting your hands dirty, definitely give this a try. But please note: although you can dye your clothing in a washing machine like I did, I advise against it. Use a large tupperware instead. Even though I bleached the washing machine immediately after dying my sweaters, I still managed to tie-dye a huge load of my husband’s undershirts black and white!
Do you dye or donate?
Denine
Nancy – that’s a great idea too! I keep the dye on-hand now – I have a pair of black cords that need to be dyed before I wear them next fall. Just make sure you rinse your washing machine with a bleach-water cycle before using it afterwards.
What an interesting idea! I think this idea would also work with dingy/slightly stained baby clothes or diapers if you used pastel dye.
Jackie – I remember her saying that she dyed all of her jeans black, and they came out very well. Basically, anything that was in her closet went in with the dye. According to RIT’s website, http://www.ritdye.com/, you can pretty much dye anything – as long as you follow the instructions!
Michele – you are TOO funny! I will have to keep an eye out for that sort of dye – I could use some of it myself. 🙂
Wow!! Thanks for posting this!! It’s incredible and if I’m brave enough I will definitely try it out! Do you happen to remember if the lady who inspired you dyed anything patterned or in a dark color that was not originally black..and if so, how those items came out?
Very cool, Denine! I’m going to keep this in mind. Now, do they have a dye that will make my clothes help me to appear skinnier? 🙂