How can I dye my dark blue flight suit to light blue?
October 1, 2013 3:06 PM   Subscribe

I'm trying to go as John Glenn for Halloween (I work someplace with his name on it). Specifically I'm trying to go as this picture. The suit is apparently a light blue as you can see here. I got a navy colored flight suit, but the color is really dark - it looks almost black in some light. Is there a way to make the suit a lighter color of blue?

This is the flight suit I got. You can see the dark blue of the navy there when you click on the color. The suit is a 65/35 polyester/cotton twill. I've heard it's difficult to change the color of polyester, so this might not be feasible, but I thought I'd ask the hivemind! Even if I can't hit the exact color of the real suit, if I could just get it a little lighter, that'd be great.
posted by SeeTheTurtle to Clothing, Beauty, & Fashion (10 answers total)
 
My first move would be to see what bleach does.
Turn up one cuff. There should be a spot on the hem (maybe at the seam) that is "the front of the fabric" but has at least one of material between that surface and the outside of the garment.
Mix up a tablespoon of bleach with a tablespoon of water (50/50), dip your finger in it, then dot it onto the fabric. It should be wet enough to coat those fibers, but not so much liquid that it'll soak though to the outside. Check it after 10 minutes. Is it making a light spot? Check after a half hour. Any luck? If no response at all, this'll be a tough problem.

Ideally, though, you'll get an idea of what the bleached fabric will look like, whether you want to slightly bleach it, or bleach it more and re-dye, etc.
posted by aimedwander at 3:21 PM on October 1, 2013


I would try with a much more dilute solution of bleach first. You never know with some fabrics!
posted by blurker at 3:37 PM on October 1, 2013 [3 favorites]


To use dye in a case where you want to move from a dark color to a lighter color, you'd have to bleach first and then re-dye. It's not an easy job with this type of material. Polyester bleaches very poorly if at all. You also risk damaging the fibers to the point that they are super-weak and brittle. I would not suggest this approach unless you're an expert.

You may want to consider painting it light blue. You can try fabric/upholstery spray paint or latex paint combined with textile medium.

Honestly, it's probably easier to just go with a navy suit, or buy light blue coveralls and add some fake zippers to make it more flight-ey.
posted by quince at 3:43 PM on October 1, 2013 [2 favorites]


In my experience, bleach on a large item often winds up both uneven/blotchy and a completely different color (not a lighter version of the same color.) If you experiment, experiment very carefully.
posted by fingersandtoes at 4:41 PM on October 1, 2013 [3 favorites]


I don't think it'll matter for a Halloween costume. You'll presumably have other accessories which will help reveal your costume, right? Bleaching something like that runs the risk of uneven and blotchy coverage which will just look worse than a really dark navy spacesuit. If anything, I associate John Glenn with a silver/metallic spacesuit, or a bright orange/red one.
posted by barnone at 5:44 PM on October 1, 2013 [1 favorite]


When I had gotten bleach on black socks and a dark blue shirt recently, they both turned orange -- I would advise getting white coveralls and dye them blue before trying to uncolor a very dark fabric.
posted by AzraelBrown at 6:59 PM on October 1, 2013


I wouldn't mess with the bleach--generally it doesn't turn out a good result.

You might try Rit dye remover.

And yes, there's always paint. Actually, paint might give it kind of a neat texture
posted by BlueHorse at 7:32 PM on October 1, 2013


Seconding Rit color remover instead of bleach.
posted by zsazsa at 9:03 PM on October 1, 2013 [1 favorite]


There is a crazy old lady in our building who spray paints everything lavender or blue, including her sofa (it came out great!), her winter hat, her running shoes (tri-color) and her jogging suit, as well as every lamp/lampshade, table, curtain, and rug in the apartment. It's amazing, but other than trying to deal with that color combination everywhere you look, it all looks pretty good.

I think I'd do the Rit color remover first and then spray paint the suit light blue. I wouldn't bleach it, myself.

Have fun.
posted by aryma at 12:33 AM on October 2, 2013 [1 favorite]


Confirming that I have spray painted fabric (demin) and had it come out surprisingly well.

You might need to do multiple coats on really dark fabric. Do one coat at a time, and test for flexibility after each one. That's the only failure I ever really had, when I was trying to paint broad white patches onto dark demin. I had to put on about 5 coats to get it really brilliant white, at which point those areas become extremely rigid.
posted by 256 at 9:04 AM on October 2, 2013


« Older Follow-up after a wedding gift was sent - is six...   |   Need help with a difficult professor Newer »
This thread is closed to new comments.