If you get your hands on microfiber fabric of some kind, you might decide at some point you need it to be a different color. Perhaps you plan to paint the room you put the furniture in. Perhaps the color whatever you own was is now out of fashion.
No matter the case, you want to know if you can do and then you’ll want to know how you can do it right. Doing it the wrong way could lead to headaches in the future, or even damaged fabric.
We put together this article to help you understand how to do it. We also included some other tips for related issues. We hope you find it highly informative.
In This Article We'll Discuss
Can you dye microfiber?
Microfiber refers to a family of fabrics comprised of very small fibers of different materials. In theory, you can dye microfiber. In practice, you’ll need to know just what fiber your microfiber is comprised of to know whether you can dye it and what to use.
One of the most popular fibers used in microfiber is polypropylene, which doesn’t take dyes very well. You should consider these microfibers not capable of being dyed. There are other ways to change their color, but it is outside the process generally known as dyeing.
Another popular material is polyester, which takes easily to dyeing. But you’ll need to use dyes known as disperse dyes on polyester microfiber to properly dye them. And, yes, you can tie-dye polyester microfiber.
A final kind of microfiber is made from is nylon. You can dye nylon microfiber with acid dyes.
Before you start trying to dye microfiber, you’ll want to find out the composition of the material used to make the fiber, because that will determine what dye to use and how difficult the process will be.
Unfortunately, dyeing microfiber can be difficult because of its compact construction. That compact construction can also lead to some disparities in how the dye is spread across the fabric.
Because it’s also synthetic, microfiber is subject to quicker fading in the sun and can lose its color more quickly than natural fiber.
Are microfiber and microsuede the same thing?
Microsuede is the same thing as microfiber, but microfiber is not the same thing as microsuede. Confused? Let’s clear it up.
Microsuede is a kind of microfiber, a sheet of synthetic cloth made up of very small fibers of synthetic material tightly bound together overall to create a sheet. The fibers are made of polyester.
Other kinds of microfibers might use nylon or polypropylene.
That makes it a kind of microfiber in the same way that ground chuck is generally considered a kind of hamburger. And in that light, if someone tells you that they plan to buy hamburger for a cookout, they might be talking about ground sirloin.
How do you dye microfiber cloth?
The most important piece of information in knowing how to dye microfiber is knowing the underlying material used on the fibers. There are three basic kinds of fibers.
The first is polypropylene, which doesn’t take to dye because of how tightly bound its fibers are. If you have polypropylene microfiber, you won’t be able to dye it.
Another is polyester microfiber, which you can dye with disperse dyes. Acid dyes are used to dye nylon fibers.
Generally speaking, what you’ll need to do is match the kind of microfiber you have to an appropriate dye. Follow the instructions on the dye package to figure out how much you’ll need for the material you have. Make sure you test on a piece of fabric so you know if it’ll take.
Making sure you leave some room so you can move around whatever you’re dyeing, blend water and the dye, and heat to an appropriate temperature. For polyester microfiber, it’s right around 200 degrees.
Then, add the microfiber to the dyeing medium and allow it to sit for about an hour. Remove it and wash it off and allow it to dry. Then, repeat the dyeing process until it’s the color you want.
Can you tie-dye microfiber towel?
With a little bit of time and a whole lot of patience, it is possible to tie-dye a microfiber towel. Your best results will come from polyester microfiber. Your worst results will come from polypropylene, which doesn’t take to dyes of any kind.
Make sure you get a high-quality dye that has a high level of color fastness to it. Once you do that, you should be good to go as far as tie-dyeing polyester microfiber.
There are two other ways you can get a tie-dye effect on a microfiber cloth. You can either paint with crayon or paint with actual paint. These aren’t technically tie-dyeing it, but the result is the same.
Is microfiber the hardest fabric to dye?
Synthetic fabrics are naturally difficult to dye because they don’t absorb it as readily as natural fabrics, and are prone to losing their color quickly to the sun and other elements.
Microfiber is even more difficult to dye because the very small fibers it is comprised of are packed together. That means even more surface area to dye, which itself can lead to uneven dyeing.
To compound things, microfiber can be made from several different synthetic fibers. If you get the wrong dye for the wrong fiber, it won’t take.
Fibers made from polypropylene won’t take dyes of any kind. These aren’t just hard to dye, they are impossible. Use disperse dyes on polyester fibers and use acid dyes on nylon fibers.
Conclusion
If you need to dye microfiber, you’re in luck. It’s not that hard and you can make use of a variety of different kinds of dye. You can even make yourself belle of the beach with a tye-dyed microfiber towel.
We hope you found this article informative and valuable. If you did, we’d love to hear about it in a comment below. We’d also invite you to share this on your social media networks. There are no doubt others with the same questions as you out there.