Reverse Tie-Dye Sweatsuit Experiment

Shawnaci Schroeder
by Shawnaci Schroeder
4 Materials
15 Minutes
Easy

Today I’m doing a little experiment, and you’re all welcome to follow along and see what happens. I really wanted to tie-dye some of my clothes, but I don’t actually have any tie-dying equipment. So I’m going to try to figure out how to reverse tie-dye a sweatsuit, using bleach. Follow along to see how it all turns out!

Tools and materials:

  • Clothes you want to tie-dye
  • Empty spray bottle
  • Bleach
  • Water
How to reverse tie-dye a sweatsuit

Prepare bleach

To start my bleach tie-dye experiment, I filled an empty spray bottle with a mixture of water and bleach, using about an equal amount of each. 

Reverse tie-dye sweatsuit patterns

Twist or fold

I had four clothing items I was trying to tie-dye. I made accordion folds in two of them, and twisted the other two in the middle, like cinnamon buns. You can fold or twist the fabric you are working with in any way you like. 

Reverse tie-dye bleach

Spray

Once the clothing items were folded the way I liked, I sprayed them with diluted bleach. 

How to do reverse tie-dye

I made sure to flip each one and spray the other side, as well.

Bleach tie-dye sweatsuit

I loosened some of the folds and twists and sprayed in there, too.

Bleach tie-dye

Unfold 

I unfolded all the clothes I tie-dyed to see how they came out before I hung them up to dry. I decided to refold and respray the shorts and sweatpants since there were areas that had almost no bleach on them. 

Hang to dry

Once I was satisfied with how the bleaching turned out, I hung the clothes to dry. 

Rinse and wash

Then I rinsed each item in the sink and threw them all in the wash. Once they came out of the laundry, they were ready to wear.



For some reason, the shorts look exactly the same as they did before I bleached them. But the shirt came out fantastic! This is one of the items I accordion folded, and the pattern came out looking like clouds. I love it! I will definitely be wearing this shirt much more because it’s so cute and unique. 


This set came out amazing. I love the patterns on both of them. I was worried about the pants because the bleach didn’t seem to be doing much while I was spraying them, but I’m so impressed with how they turned out. 


So now you’ve seen the results of my bleach tie-dye sweatsuit experiment, and you can try it out for yourself. Which tie-dyed item do you like the best?

Suggested materials:
  • Clothes
  • Empty spray bottle
  • Bleach
See all materials

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Comments
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2 of 3 comments
  • DeBorah Beatty DeBorah Beatty on May 23, 2021

    The thing with using bleach is that the fabric you use makes a difference as you saw. But one step you missed is that with chlorine bleach, you need to add some anti-chlor to the after rinse to stop the bleach (otherwise it keeps dissolving the fabric and you'll find holes in a few washes), Good job for your first try!

  • Shirlieann Shirlieann on May 24, 2021

    This is such an easy way to make a old outfit new again. I agree with the anti chlorine rinse. Such a great idea

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