Royale Filmwear Madagascar Shirt Color Correction

BCFDRay

In keeping with David Zaritsky’s frugal Bond, I have a frugal fix for the Royale Filmwear Madagascar shirt. Don’t get me wrong, the shirt is fantastic as is, but I wanted the screen accurate color.

First I went through Rit Dye’s entire Formula catalog online and picked what I thought was the closest color to the screen accurate color and bought the corresponding dyes. Continuing the frugality of the shirt, I went to AC Moore armed with a coupon.





$4 and change later, it was time to experiment., I grabbed a white cotton T-shirt and started playing with time in the solution




After deciding on the formula and length of time that looked best, I took the plunge and here are the results


BEFORE


AFTER





Here’s my formula:
4 gallons of Very hot water
1.25 teaspoons of Rit Golden Yellow
1/4 teaspoon of Rit Fuchsia
Mix thoroughly

Add pre-wet shirt and stir constantly
Every so often unball the shirt and put it back in the solution to make sure the dye is applied evenly.
Total time in the solution was 10 minutes
I removed the shirt and ran cold water over it until the water was clear.
I then ran it through a wash cycle with detergent and dried on a very low heat.





Fun little project and I’m very happy with the results!

Cheverian

Nicely done! This shirt doesn't appeal to me. I don't hate it the way some here do, but I can't see adding it to my wardrobe. But I am consistently impressed with and grateful for Dan Love's projects. I expect he might be using your dye formula if he does another run of this shirt.

Enjoying Death

BCFDRay wrote:

In keeping with David Zaritsky’s frugal Bond, I have a frugal fix for the Royale Filmwear Madagascar shirt. Don’t get me wrong, the shirt is fantastic as is, but I wanted the screen accurate color.

First I went through Rit Dye’s entire Formula catalog online and picked what I thought was the closest color to the screen accurate color and bought the corresponding dyes. Continuing the frugality of the shirt, I went to AC Moore armed with a coupon.





$4 and change later, it was time to experiment., I grabbed a white cotton T-shirt and started playing with time in the solution




After deciding on the formula and length of time that looked best, I took the plunge and here are the results


BEFORE


AFTER





Here’s my formula:
4 gallons of Very hot water
1.25 teaspoons of Rit Golden Yellow
1/4 teaspoon of Rit Fuchsia
Mix thoroughly

Add pre-wet shirt and stir constantly
Every so often unball the shirt and put it back in the solution to make sure the dye is applied evenly.
Total time in the solution was 10 minutes
I removed the shirt and ran cold water over it until the water was clear.
I then ran it through a wash cycle with detergent and dried on a very low heat.





Fun little project and I’m very happy with the results!

Great job and thanks for the info. Will now be dyeing mine as well.

BCFDRay

Thank you! Definitely do some samples before committing.

The Bond Experience

REALLY great solution!

James Boldman

Awesome, thanks for posting!

Bond00XL

Love my Royale Madagascar, but gonna attempt this as well. Thank you for the (successful) experiment!

Wish me luck!

Thanks again.

Matt N

I saw a comment on David's youtube video that the same effect can be achieved with a couple of tea bags...

Given I'm a Brit and Rit Dye seems to be be hard to come by here, but we've got tea by the bucket load, I decided to given it a go earlier. I'm not sure my 1st attempt made that much difference, but after a bit of research, I repeated the process with four tea bags, 2 tables spoons of salt, and enough hot water to cover. I gave the shirt a wash afterwards, and while it didn't look obviously different initially, it did seem to take the edge off the edge of the brightness and now I've gone back and compared to the video, it does look a lot closer to SA

While the dye method is probably the better and more permanent of the two, the tea method seems to do the trick and, at least for us in the UK, is probably the more frugal of the two methods. It also seems to be a time honoured method of ageing fabrics, which I think is essentially what the shirt needed

CommanderB

This is fantastic -- Definitely going to try it. Thanks!

CommanderB

Cheverian wrote:

Nicely done! This shirt doesn't appeal to me. I don't hate it the way some here do, but I can't see adding it to my wardrobe. But I am consistently impressed with and grateful for Dan Love's projects. I expect he might be using your dye formula if he does another run of this shirt.

I sort of agree with you about the shirt generally -- not typically my style -- BUT, since my family goes to Hawaii fairly regularly and I'm loathe to buy a typical Hawaiian shirt, Dan's is the perfect compromise.

BCFDRay

Matt N wrote:

I saw a comment on David's youtube video that the same effect can be achieved with a couple of tea bags...

Given I'm a Brit and Rit Dye seems to be be hard to come by here, but we've got tea by the bucket load, I decided to given it a go earlier. I'm not sure my 1st attempt made that much difference, but after a bit of research, I repeated the process with four tea bags, 2 tables spoons of salt, and enough hot water to cover. I gave the shirt a wash afterwards, and while it didn't look obviously different initially, it did seem to take the edge off the edge of the brightness and now I've gone back and compared to the video, it does look a lot closer to SA

While the dye method is probably the better and more permanent of the two, the tea method seems to do the trick and, at least for us in the UK, is probably the more frugal of the two methods. It also seems to be a time honoured method of ageing fabrics, which I think is essentially what the shirt needed

Ive done some props with a tea stain before, a Statesman bourbon label, and it does work, but has to be highly concentrated to have much of an effect

Lone Wolf

I love the creativity to this! While I have always enjoyed Daniel Love's projects, the Madagascar shirt has never been my style, but seeing the extreme brightness of the shirt in David's video, it seemed very jarring. Seeing this simple, efficient, and cheap solution really makes it a worthwhile purchase and project for anyone on the fence about this shirt. Well done Ray!

johnwr1

Thanks to Ray for the perfect formula. Finally had a chance to dye mine. Came out great.

Penfold99

I am brand new to the site, but I wanted to say I did mine with tea, and got just about the same result...We'll see how it lasts, I imagine it may fade some with washes???

Dave

Thomo

Question for my UK colleagues. Has the tea version of dying this worked over the longer term? Is that the best method do we think? Thanks everyone

OO

I had a go with the Rit dye and managed to turn my shirt a nice shade of pink! Doh!

I’m not really sure what I did wrong. The fuchsia seems a much stronger dye colour than the golden yellow and overpowered it I guess. I did follow the quantities carefully (1.25 teaspoons golden yellow, 0,25 teaspoon fuchsia), so I’m not sure why it was so out. Others have clearly had success so the formula must be good. This is the first time I’ve ever attempted dying anything though, so no doubt it was something I did wrong! Any further tips on achieving the correct colour if I were to try again from scratch?

Robert

Hart008

got the shirt and i thought it was just me when i saw it, so it did seem too white hehe, ill try the tea solution, how long did you guys submerge it in tea water haha

BCFDRay

OO wrote:

I had a go with the Rit dye and managed to turn my shirt a nice shade of pink! Doh!

I’m not really sure what I did wrong. The fuchsia seems a much stronger dye colour than the golden yellow and overpowered it I guess. I did follow the quantities carefully (1.25 teaspoons golden yellow, 0,25 teaspoon fuchsia), so I’m not sure why it was so out. Others have clearly had success so the formula must be good. This is the first time I’ve ever attempted dying anything though, so no doubt it was something I did wrong! Any further tips on achieving the correct colour if I were to try again from scratch?

Robert

I haven’t the slightest idea of what could have went wrong. Are you sure you didn’t do the mix backwards?

OO

BCFDRay wrote:

I haven’t the slightest idea of what could have went wrong. Are you sure you didn’t do the mix backwards?

I'm very sure the quantities weren't backwards. The only thing I can possibly imagine is maybe I have a bad batch of the Golden Yellow dye, if that's even possible.

Thanks for posting the original idea. It looks great. Since Daniel's running such a heavy discount at the moment I think I'll give it another go, but I'll do some tests on a white cotton sample first next time so I don't screw it up again!

Robert

ellipsis97

Tea solution , 48 hours with 6 black tea bags

Thomo

ellipsis97 wrote:

Tea solution , 48 hours with 6 black tea bags

That looks great - so black tea (bags) yes. have you washed it since? Did it fade at all??

ellipsis97

Thomo wrote:

ellipsis97 wrote:

Tea solution , 48 hours with 6 black tea bags

That looks great - so black tea (bags) yes. have you washed it since? Did it fade at all??

I put it in cold water with white vinegar after 48 hours which helps settle the color
I let it dry completely and put it on washing machine (30 degrees celcius)
Hasn't faded at all yet

Thomo

ellipsis97 wrote:

Thomo wrote:

ellipsis97 wrote:

Tea solution , 48 hours with 6 black tea bags

That looks great - so black tea (bags) yes. have you washed it since? Did it fade at all??

I put it in cold water with white vinegar after 48 hours which helps settle the color
I let it dry completely and put it on washing machine (30 degrees celcius)
Hasn't faded at all yet

What a great job