Jazz up your your old white hose for pennies!

[Nathan]

After reading the suggestion of dying white hose by CmcG and Tobus in another thread, I couldn't believe that it had never occurred to me to give this a try. I have a nice selection of coloured and diced hose, but had three pairs of undyed hose from my teens just sitting around way out of my preferred rotation. I purchased 2 boxes of Tintex fabric dye at the local pharmacy for $2.70 each and the task was dead easy.

Today on my lunch break, I dyed one pair Royal blue and they are drying to a very nice smurf-like tone. The second pair, I dyed brilliant yellow and they look to be taking on a very nice mustard coloured hue.

I decided to keep my highest quality pair the way they were just in case I'm ever asked to wear cream hose as someone's groomsman or if I'm going for a hike with my arran sweater and feel like giving these a wear.

The great thing about this solution, is that one pair had some staining on them from my ghillie brogue laces. White hose is loved by some and hated by others, but dirty looking stained white hose aren't impressive to anyone at all.

The nice thing about dying your own is that the colour will be a little unique. It's nice to have something a little different from what you usually see at the local kilt shop or on popular websites.

If you want to get brave, you can mix your own colours and see what happens. This was a brilliant suggestion and I wanted to share that I put it into practice right away. They are still hanging to dry but I'll post more photos when I wear them.

For now...

[Hopper250]

Those look like they are turing out great. I would say you made a good choice on colors.

[ASinclair]

Nathan,

Great job! Your 'new' hose are quite colorful.

[Tobus]

Make sure you wash them once or twice before wearing. You'll find that a lot of that colour bleeds out. Better to do that in the wash than on your feet!

[Downunder Kilt]

Well done Nathan, I like the colours that you have selected. Several years ago I dyed a couple of pairs of off white/ecru hose with tea and coffee, which proved very successful. They are pure wool and I still wear them in rotation with my other hose. Cheers and well done.

[unixken]

Make sure you wash them once or twice before wearing. You'll find that a lot of that colour bleeds out. Better to do that in the wash than on your feet!

Unless you want smurf-blue feet...

[fw_kilt]

I'll echo Tobus's suggestion to wash them before wearing. I recently dyed a pair red and I mean RED! Twice the recommended dye for twice the time - a full wash cycle and three rinses and they stopped "bleeding" more or less. Your colors look great. The company that makes RIT dyes has a web site which has the formulas for mixing over 500 colors.

[Orionson]

"Several years ago I dyed a couple of pairs of off white/ecru hose with tea and coffee, which proved very successful."

~ Downunder

I have a pair of very good quality Arran Cable pure wool hose from the 70's that I haven't worn in decades. I love the idea of colouring them with either tea or coffee to better suit my predominantly brown MacDuff Hunting Modern Tank. How did you do it exactly? Both coffee and tea? One or the other? How long do you soak them for? Hot or cold, etc... How did they come out?

Thanks.

[CMcG]

Good job Nathan. The colour seems to be taking quite well, so your hose must have had a fairly high natural fibre content. How does the colour in your photos compare to the one on the label of the dye?

As Tobus mentioned on that other thread, artificial yarn doesn't take colour nearly as well... at least not without something other than the basic craft/sewing store dyes. For example, I dyed my cheap cream hose in the same batch as a friend's and mine came sort of khaki while his were a much deeper green.

[English Bloke]

I rather like the idea of NOT washing them before wearing. That way you can have a day of wearing NO socks at all with your Ghillie Brogues... and no-one will notice.