Better alternative to Rit for dying?

[BigBrother]

I have a white cotton pique bow tie I tried to turn black. I Rit-ed it twice- once for 30 mins, then again for 60 -and I cannot get it black! It just turned a dark gray and seems to want to stay there.

Is this the sort of thing where Rit is the plebe product found at supermarkets, and the pros use something much better?

Thanks!

 

[MagsRags]

Back when I was doing tie dye, I used Dharma Trading Company. They provide good information as well as selling a wide variety of dyes for different types of fabric. They also sell dyeable clothes!

 

[plousia]

You want Procion MX dyes for natural fabrics like cotton. Strong, very durable colours. Slightly more complicated process than Rit, much better results. You'll want to use a dye remover first to remove the existing colour; I've found the Rit (if I recall correctly) dye remover does work well.

Edit: maybe if you're going from dark gray to black you don't need to remove the existing colour first, though hard to predict how things will overdye; you may get a weird cast to your black, but dye is hard to predict.