what's the difference between Jacquard, ProChem and Procion? Can they be used together? Are there different mixing instructions?
Procion MX is the original manufacturer's brand name for the dichorotriazine type of fiber reactive dyes. There are other good kinds of
fiber reactive dyes, as well, but the dichlorotriazines have the lowest warmth requirement (minimum of 70°F), and are the easiest type of dyes in this group to find in the US. You can use the same mixing instructions and recipes for any dye that is labeled Procion MX, regardless of where you buy it.
Jacquard and ProChem are two of the companies that sell Procion MX type dyes as well as other types of dyes. Jacquard sells directly only for jars of 8 ounces or larger in size, but they also sell their products through many other companies, such as the best local art supply stores, and by mail-order through Dharma Trading Company. Jacquard, Dharma, and ProChem all sell most of the unmixed single-hue Procion MX type dyes, and each of these three companies also sells their own proprietary mixtures, which are not the same as one another's. These three companies are in the US. See my web site for
a listing of many different dye retailers, in the US and around the world.
To find out which of the dyes each company sells that are pure, unmixed, single-hue dyes, see my tables of
Which Procion MX colors are pure, and which mixtures?. That page lists the catalog names and numbers of the individual unmixed Procion MX dyes for the larger retailers.
I have some questions in regards to browns and blacks. I have been using Procion dyes and didn't think I needed black but I see now that I do. What is the best black to purchase?
All of the blacks and most of the browns available in the Procion MX dye series are mixtures. The only readily-available unmixed single-dye-color brown is Brown MX-GRN, a sort of terra-cotta color, almost more orange than brown, which is sold by ProChem as burnt orange and by Jacquard (Rupert Gibbon & Spider) as rust orange.
Among the blacks, for dyeing cotton, one of the colors I like is Procion MX-CWNA, which Dharma calls "New Black" and Jacquard calls Warm Black. The other blacks are nice, too. Different people have different preferences. In every case, you must use two to four times as much black dye powder as you would of any other color, or you will not get a true black. For dyeing silk, ProChem sells a mixture called "Silk Black", which will be blacker on silk than the various black mixtures that have been standardized on cotton.
You do not want to mix your own blacks unless you buy suitable dark, dull primaries to mix it from. You cannot mix a good black with the bright clear color primaries such as turquoise, lemon yellow, and fuchsia. You need to begin with a dark dull navy dye, and try adding a dull orange, say.
The brown seeped into all the white areas during the rinse and wash cycle (as happens with all of my RIT dye jobs). I do like the effect and so do my students. How could I re-create this with procion dyes? Would I have to water down original brown and color in white areas after first rinse and wash or do I wash without synthrapol?
Washing without Synthrapol detergent will make no difference. Other detergents are similar in activity. Washing out too soon, before the dye has had a chance to completely react, might increase your backstaining, but it is unpredictable. I think you'd do best to consciously place watered-down browns where you want them, and intense browns where you want them.
#3 Isn't it possible to create a full spectrum of browns by mixing dyes instead of purchasing all shades of browns?
Yes, but you'll do better if you purchase a wider range of mixing primaries, rather than relying on only the top three bright clear colors used for most tie-dyeing. In addition to yellow, fuchsia, and turquoise, I recommend you buy some cobalt blue (Blue MX-2G), a golden yellow such as yellow MX-GR, yellow MX-3R, or yellow MX-3RA, an orange such as orange MX-2G, the brown MX-GRN if your supplier carries it, red MX-5B, and violet MX-2R (usually mislabeled as violet MX-G). Each of these is a single-hued mixing primary, but they will produce drastically different results than the basic three colors. Of course, you can always mix your own orange mixture from a bright yellow and a fuchsia, but the edges may end up yellow, due to the different properties of the fuchsia from the yellow, and it is more complicated. To find your supplier's name for each of these dyes, look again at my page of
pure versus mixed Procion MX type dyes.
Buying premixed black dye is a major time-saver, and buying premixed browns can be fun, though the brown mixtures you can buy from one dye retailer will be different from any of the premixed browns you can buy from another. A good way to play with mixing dye colors online is to look at Olli Niemitalo's
Dye Mixer Applet. Also look at published mixing tables, such as
Jacquard's,
Dreamline's, and
Maiwa's.
Paula
