G & K Craft G&K Retayne Color Fixative 16 oz. | Best Liquid Color Fixative for Dyed Cotton, Linen and Rayon Fabrics

Did not work with cotton blue jeans.

This product works wonderfully to prevent dye transfer. I made a scrappy quilt with hundreds of different fabrics from light to bright to dark, many of which had not been pre-washed. I machine washed the quilt with warm water, two capfuls of Retayne, and two color catcher sheets just in case there was some color released. The color catcher sheets came out white from the wash. There was no color bleed into the white areas of the quilt. I highly recommend.

As a quilter, I hate prewashing. With Retayne, I don't have to. I now wash my finished quilts using Retayne as the detergent, and they come out with no runs of color at all.

I dye a lot of clothes with an all purpose dye that tends to bleed and fade with each wash. I read about retayne online and decided to give it a shot. The first time I used it, I didn’t rinse the dye, I just submerged the over-dyed black garment straight from the dye bath into the mixture of retatne and HOT water and started stirring. Immediately I saw the color of the water turn into a thick black color, but after a few minutes the water seemed to become translucent again. It was like the retayne pulled the dye back into the fabric and locked it in. While rinsing in cold water afterwards, the water became clear within 10-20 seconds. Normally, the dye would continue rinsing out with the water and I’d have to count on using the washing machine to rinse the remaining excess dye. After washing I noticed the fabric was more stiff than usual, but a second wash in cold water took care of that. This stuff works. I’ve even put fabric dyed a light color in the same retayne mixture with fabric dyed black and the black dye didn’t bleed into the lighter colored fabric -though I wouldn’t recommend trying this right away. The colors seem to stick to the fabric a lot better and are more vibrant initially. The color still fades slightly over time, and I’d recommend washing the items in cold water with like colors, but overall retayne has significantly increased the vibrancy and washfastness of all my dyed pieces.

Instructions are clear and simple to follow. Has worked well for setting dye in red and blue fabrics. No odor left in fabric. Not inexpensive.

I prewash most of my quilt fabrics with Retayne, especially reds and dark colors. It works great to set colors.