Well, I think I’ve found a recipe that works for me to be used on the poly/cotton Rothco flight suit. Here are the pics of the uniform:
No flash:
With flash:
As a side note, the patches are on the suit as color reference only. I will be sewing them on later this week. Recipe to follow!
Ok, as promised here is the recipe for the suit. You will need:
1 washer (preferably not coin operated to extend dyeing times)
2 boxes Rit color remover
2 boxes Rit pearl grey dye
1 bottle Rit purple dye (only part of the bottle will be used but you’ll have to buy a whole bottle)
1 Rothco poly/cotton flight suit (other brands may dye differently)
1 cup salt
Laundry detergent
Wash the suit in a full load of water with appropriate detergent. Allow the suit to progress through the entire cycle.
Remove suit and fill washer halfway with hot water. At this time add both boxes of color remover. Allow washer to agitate for a minute or two. While probably not necessary, I ran the already damp suit under hot tap water to warm it up. Place suit in washer and agitate for 5 minutes. After 5 minutes has elapsed, shut the washer off. Take the suit and unwind it (the suit twists up during agitation) to make sure all parts of the suit are exposed to the color remover equally and place back in the washer. Make sure suit is completely submerged underwater (I worked the air bubbles out of mine with a broom handle). Let soak for 1 hour.
After 1 hour, restart the washer. Let the washer finish both cycles. Unwind the suit again and wash with regular detergent. During the rinse part of the wash cycle I set the washer to “large” to make sure the suit was adequately rinsed.
Remove suit and start filling the washer halfway with hot water. Dissolve 2 boxes of Rit pearl grey dye in 4 cups of hot water and then add to washer. Dissolve 1 cup of salt as best you can in 4 cups of hot water and add to machine. I found that excesses of both dye and salt can be rinsed out with the water flowing into the machine. Add 1 cap full of purple dye and 1 tbsp of laundry detergent. Allow washer to agitate for a few minutes and mix the dye thoroughly. While washer is agitating, rinse the suit under hot water. Add suit to the washer and keep agitating for a few more minutes (about 5). After 5 minutes, shut washer off again. Untwist suit, submerge and let it soak for 4 hours making sure the suit is completely covered by the dye mixture.
I’m going to break here and confess that while dyeing my suit, I was going to let it sit for 4 hours. During that time I fell asleep. The suit was supposed to be removed at 11:30 p.m. It wasn’t until I woke up at 5 a.m. that I remembered I had a suit in the washer. If you really want to be technical about my recipe, the suit soaked for 9 1/2 hours. I really doubt this is necessary though as when I got to the suit, it had come up above the surface (that or the water level dropped a bit) and there were no light or dark spots. This means at a certain point the suit stops taking the dye. I think 4 hours should be enough but I’ll let you all judge for yourselves.
Drain the washer, set water level to large and allow cycle to complete. Remove the suit, untwist it and wash with detergent. After the cycle completes, dry in the dryer for about 30 minutes.
Done!
As we speak I am redyeing a suit using this recipe. If I can take a previously dyed khaki suit and accomplish the same shade I got here with a new suit I’ll be happy because it will have a broader range of application.
Thanks to Eric (Funkzilla) for his suggestions with using a complementary color to cancel out the yellow in the Rothco suit.
I got the same suit and the dye remover was essential for my suit.
Agreed. The color remover does get some of the color out, especially noticeable with the poly/cotton suit I did.
As promised, here are pictures of the two suits. As you can see, they vary slightly in color but the suit that looks more yellow was the one that I removed dye from first before redyeing using my posted recipe. Also depending on lighting conditions the suits will go from khaki to that very light grey color.
Outdoors:
Slightly overcast (just before sun went down)
Sunlight at sunset (directly beaming onto suit which may explain the abundance of yellow)
One thing I’ve noted after all the research on these suits is that even though my uniforms may appear off, those who have seen the suits in person always say that the uniforms in natural light are khaki. As these photos show, depending on how you hold the camera and the angle that the sun is shining in, etc. the suit can take on a wide range of colors from gray to brown to khaki. For this reason I am keeping the suits as is and not obsessing over the color anymore. One suit will be my “main” suit and the other will be either a GB2 khaki uniform or a “stunt” suit (in case I go to a wild party). Comments and questions are welcome of course but I think this is the way the suits will remain.