Looks GREAT! BTW GO GIANTS!!!
for the orange dye is it tangerine orange or sunshine orange
Any one have any luck dyeing the True-spec suits? I’ve got one of those and the more I look at it the more I’m saddened by it’s inaccuracies. For one the angled chest zippers seem awfully far apart. hmmm curious.
I’ve had a rothco sitting in my closet for close to a year but it seems more tan then a pissy yellow color. Is this a newer version and will this recipe still work for it?
I have a question for the more experienced dyers here.
A few of us big guys need to use the 5 and 6x Rothco suits and they don’t come in khaki. I think the 6X only comes in black.
Has anyone tried stripping the black and trying this recipe?
How well it works, really depends on the poly/cotton blend, the higher cotton ratio would work better. But I doubt you’ll be able to get it light enough. I have been wrong before though.
I’m very late to the party on this, but I wouldn’t recommend starting with a black Rothco and trying to get khaki out of it. Whenever I’ve used color remover or bleach on a black Rothco, I’ve always ended up with reddish-grey color that is far darker than the shade of khaki you’re aiming for. I just don’t think it will lighten up enough.
Interesting - I’m even later to the party, I picked up a Rothco jumpsuit and it looks not all that bad. It’s a fawn/tan color more than a piss yellow.
But then I’m not a purist, so I guess I’m not seeing the huge color difference. ![]()
after seeing a rothco in person, it seemed like the color was spot on… we should get better color comparisons from the new bluray though…
I just purchased a Rothco from my local army surplus store, I’m thinking they may have adjusted the tint of the khaki because It looks correct to me, not yellow like the ones I’ve seen here. I’ll try and get some comparison pics soon.
There are a lot of variance with them. I initially picked up 4, and they ranged from pretty-close to almost pure yellow.
Just got some liquid Pearl gray RIT dye from my local A.C. Moore and I have a question.
After I strip the color off in the washing machine, how much liquid dye should I use or am I better off using the black, purple, orange recipe?
Sorry to be a Debbie Downer, but four years out and there definitely does seem to be at least some variance with the Rothco suits. When mine first arrived, it was a lot duller than my old school “piss yellow” Rothco – I followed the directions and I’m now the owner of a really splotchy, purple suit. I would definitely advise fellow 'busters to test heavily and trust your eyes while dyeing the uniforms. 'Tis the season, and we’re cutting it pretty close to Halloween. I would hate for someone to be in this predicament when it comes down to the wire. In my case, a couple of bleachings/color strippings followed by a quick Pearl Gray wash would have probably done the trick. I’m already ordering another uniform and I’ll try to grab more pics this time. As for big purple, I might try to salvage it as a GB2 grey uniform.
In short: be careful, expect to experiment, and be receptive to the idea that there isn’t one definitive recipe, with no disrespect at all to the OP. Thanks and happy ’ busting!
Update: After two bleach washes and another box of RIT color remover, the suit might yet be saved. So if anyone reads this with a maroon suit, don’t lose hope. Using the original dye measurements and only 7 minutes, my uniform was already fried. Water temperature might be a factor here as I used boiling water as hot water. This might be obvious, but during the first two bleaches, make sure that the bleach is well mixed into the water as the washer fills up, I think the initial splotchiness post-dyeing went all the way back to these steps. (And obviously never let the undiluted bleach make direct contact with the suit.)
The purple/orange/black color tint is actually spot-on give or take on how yellowish your Rothco is. I might have been too hasty about the Pearl Gray. I couldn’t find an Orange RIT dye, so substituting their new Tangerine dye may be a factor in things. I added another splash of it when adding the black dye. If the sink looks too dark, it probably is. I’d rather extra color additive steps over bleaching backwards, so maybe play around with the dye/water amount without changing the color ratio. Definitely mind your water temperature. No pics of the purple suit before I bleached, but if you have one, you’ll know it. Hopefully I’ll have some of a completed uniform. I’m a newbie, but maybe this will help somebody out. Thanks!

Silly me, I never even thought enough to dye my Rothco. Though Rox and I got out coveralls at the same time, it was obvious that they were different die lots, but neither is ‘piss yellow’ like I see on the children’s and Rubies costumes
Has anyone ever just tried the Khaki dye from RIT? Seems that would be easier than having to mix several dyes. just wondering if there is a simpler option for Rothco.