TULIP Fabric Dye 37934 Fdy Lg Mermaid 5-Color 4Oz Kit, Detailed

Every year we do a family tie dye day. We always have great success with Tulip dyes and the shirts hold their color for years. My granddaughters loved the Mermaid color selection!

While I love the product itself, it worked great, and I had tons of fun with my kids. It doesn’t really do 30 pieces. Unless you do 30 small items. You really have to saturate the items to avoid missed spots, therefore the dye goes fast. The fun we had outweighs that, but I felt it was important to mention that.

These dont provide very much dye, but the end result looks good.

Caps on jars are not airtight. Dye leaked out when applying to fabric. Plastic gloves are useless and rubber bands broke easily.

This product is awesome and we will be buying the other colors as well. Bonus is that after you use up the colors there is packets of more dye in the box! So you get 2 projects out of this!

I bought this kit as one of my COVID-19 stay at home projects. Half the dye powder comes in the bottles and the other half is in packets. I used first half to dye the shirts pictured (4 adult tees, 2 adult tanks, and 2 kids’ tees) and will be giving the rest to my sister. I probably could have stretched it further but I applied generous amounts of dye to ensure the colors were vibrant (and they are!). As recommended by others I purchased a pound of soda ash separately and soaked the shirts in it for 20 minutes before dying. I also let the dye set overnight instead of the 6-8 hours instructed. My technique could use some work but I’m pretty happy with the results!

We got white clothes rather than craft tees for variety, and the kids had FUN,! We used a dish washing tub outside, and placed the wet shirts once designed into large bags for the longer amount of time. I rinsed and wrung them out before laundering. We made tees, tanks, shorts, and even dyed white denim short-alls. Great way to get kids of all ages involved.

I thought these colors meshed really well together. For some reason the lavender looks gray in my pictures but in person, it is just a very pale lavender with no gray undertones. These colors worked because they didn’t blend and get muddy like the other Tulip kits I’ve purchased. I’m not sure if that’s the colors or just me being careful not to oversaturate or mix colors. The Aegean Sea color that looks gray in the stock photos is actually a lovely sea green color. It’s like if army green and teal got together and had a baby, that baby would be named Aegean Sea. I am pleased with this kit. I only left the dye on for one hour because I heard that it makes the colors look more pastel. And I wanted a softer tie dye. Honestly I can’t tell a difference in that strategy. The turquoise and purple are as vibrant as the turquoise and purple I’ve left on for 12-24 hours in previous tie dye projects. I’ve been tie dying shirts all summer going through this craze with my kids, and one recommendation I have is that you treat your fabric with soda ash prior to dying. Buy a pound of it on Amazon for about $8, put the whole pound in a bucket of mop bucket water, and let your shirts sit in it for 30 minutes. Take shirts out and wring them out completely, then dye fabric immediately while damp. I swear the soda ash makes the colors so much more vibrant! My first tie dye project I did not do the soda ash and my colors were very dull. Almost like a tie dye shirt you’ve owned for 15 years. Just kinda bland. The soda ash really works and I’m honestly not sure how but it makes a noticeable difference. I also have been letting the shirts soak in vinegar after dying and rinsing, but vinegar doesn’t do anything to make the colors set or stay. It’s a wasted step. My shirts come out vibrant and stay that way for many washings regardless if I “set” the final product with vinegar or not! Have fun! Swirl pattern is the easiest. Crumple is cool but you have to be careful to not really mix the colors as you’re applying the dye all over. I strategically placed the dye all over but was careful not to overlap colors. Overlapping a bit is ok but too much makes the final product a big ole blob of mixed colors. Sounds cool except the colors will not be the colors you bought. Fuchsia and green will somehow make a dark muddy violet. Turquoise and purple will make a murky navy violet. It’s best to try the swirl or some sort of stripe pattern where the colors stay separate.

Was fun and easy to use project for kids! Try it.

The colors do not match what I ordered they are just a mix of bright neon colors. Not the purple gray teal in the picture. But the kids were so excited! so we just used it although I wanted a different style for the blankets on there beds I guess the neon will be fine. And they had fun doing it so that’s what’s important!