DIY Tie-Dye shirts and Ombre Shorts Tutorial!

 

So it's Summer and we're eventually getting a bit of British sunshine and jetting off to finding it elsewhere. Myself, I'm going to Ibiza last week and a few weeks ago when shopping for cheap holiday basics decided to try out doing some tie-dye for the first time.

I went to Primark and stocked up on a few designs of basic t-shirts including a plain 'boyfriend style' one, a baggy crop and an oversized vest.

I also spotted some plain denim shorts for only £5! Of course they're not topshop or levi quality but they're a good base to start on when playing with fabric dye so it's not a disaster if it goes wrong. I'm sure everyone's seen the trend of ombre dip dye shorts, often distressed or embellished, which is the look I decided to try and go for (although the studs i've ordered haven't came in the post yet-i'll upload picture to this when they do.

 

The dyes i used on these are Nylon which seem to be the most readily available to us in the UK. I get impression fabric dyes are a lot easier to find in the US- i ordered the sachets of mine off eBay and had a right hassle on with getting them delivered for a few weeks before eventually receiving them but I now know that Hobbycraft shops sell them too.

 

The colours I went for were sunflower yellow, tropical green, bahama blue and flamingo pink. I thought these were most Summery colours and could work either pastelly or vibrant and blend nicely.

To do the techniques in this blog, aside from the dyes, you will need:

• water bottles or squeezable containers to pour the dye out off
• salt, to mix into the dye mixture in order to get the colour to cling to the fabric
• elastic bands to tie the fabric together, string would work too.
• plastic gloves of some type to stop hands being stained!
• black or plastic bags to protect work surface

I added 1-2 heaped teaspoons of dye per bottle (dependent on how much dye being made and how vibrant) and then a tablespoon of salt. You can get proper Dylon salt but I just used ordinary table salt from the kitchen cupboard and it seemed to work fine!

I then filled the bottle up with warm water (apparently its more effective this way) then shuck the bottles until fully mixed together.

As a total tie-dye virgin I was sure the outcomes of my project would be a bit hit and miss but the great thing about it is that its' quite forgiving- it seems to look effective no matter how messy you apply it and you can always dye on top of already died patterns!

I did my dying in the garden, which is probably the safest place to avoid staining stuff as its easy for this stuff to get all over. I used an outside table and covered it in cut bin liners to protect to the wood.

 

The first and probably most well known is a 'spiral'. Before you start make sure your t-shirt is damp in order to help the dye spread then starting at the centre of the fabric, pinch and twirl around in order to get a swirl effect in the fabric. 

 

Then use the plastic bands to secure the fabric, and position them as if you are slicing a pizza into the standard 8 partitions.

 

Because i have four colours i went around and put a different one on each section then repeated- it doesn't matter if its rough its really hard to be exact even with a bottle. Try and make sure there's no visable white bits in order to get the most coverage on the design as possible. 

 Then flip the bundle (and move to a different part of the plastic in order to avoid ruining your pattern) and do the same corresponding colours on the right side.

 

I then left the t-shirt to dry and absorb in the sun on plastic bag whilst I got on with the rest.

For the cropped t-shirt I wanted a two tone messy marble effect so literally just scrunched it up into a messy design then secured it with randomly placed bands.

I randomly sloshed the flamingo pink and sunflower yellow around it, making sure any visible white bits were saturated and again flipped and moved it and repeated the process on the other side. This is definitely the easiest and most forgiving tie-dye design to do!

The idea for the design of the oversized vest was a two tone circle design- doing rings all around blending into each other.

Like the spiral design, you find the middle of the fabric but this time band it then do the same grabbing sections until your left with a weird kind of fabric worm to apply the dye too.

I poured the green and blue dyes on alternating sections on both sides like I had with the others but I found it really difficult to saturate all the fabric. I'm not sure if its' because I chose a funny shaped garment for this design or the way I grabbed the fabric together but the dye just seemed to be running off not absorbing into the fabric. Maybe i hadn't dampened it enough first.

After I had all the designs done that I wanted to with the squeezy bottles, I cleared the area again and left them aside to help dry out.

For the ombre/ dip-dye shorts I found a container (I think this was a partition from my old fridge) as it was the perfect width of the legs to dip in and get an even coverage both sides. Because of the higher volume of water, and how bright I wanted the pink to be I doubled the amount of dye and salt to the mixture then used a large spoon to mix it all in to disolve thoroughly.

 

I quickly submerged the shorts into the pink mixture and gradually left longer the further down the leg of the short to create a 'dip dye' gradual effect. This was quite difficult to master and was definitley trial and error. Originally i didn't want to cover so much of the denim in the pink mixture but i found it getting more and more as i tried to blend it as realistic as could. 

  

As you can see by the last picture- I'd almost entirely covered the whole short in pink dye so knew i had to fill the bowl with a blue coloured dye in order to blend the pink into blue more gradually, again leaving it in the dye longer toward the end of the fabric.

 

The pinker parts then turned more lilac and the shorts actually looked ombre now! So it was time to clean up. Also follow my advice and actually wear gloves so you don't end up with hands like I did!

 

When the sun had gone down, I wrapped up each bundle in individual sandwich bags (although carrier bags would work too if you have enough) and left over night to make sure the colour would be as vibrant as possible.

The next morning I started by rinsing the fabric under the cold tap with the bands still around it to wash off any excess dye then slowly took them off and made sure all the fabric had been rinsed thoroughly.

Very little dye visabley came out of them but the colours were slightly more pastely than they had looked whilst staining. I think its because of how little of the sachets I used- more dye = more vibrant colour obviously.

I then filled up the kitchen sink with warm water and bio detergent to hand wash all of the clothes although you can just put them in the washing machine by themselves at first, too! Just to make sure the dye doesn't come out on any other clothes you own.

I then left all of them out on the washing line to dry (because we're medieval and don't have a tumble drier) then went out to the gym and by the time I came back they were all dried and ready to go.

As you can see, the blue and green vest was a bit of a fail. I knew i hadn't covered most of the white but didn't anticipate it to be as bad as it came out! No worries though because you can just dye again on top if you make same mistake as me! I liked how much coverage the scrunchy marble effect design had done so did the same on top of the vest colours.

I then sealed in the dried clothes by ironing them inside out and VOILA! I had transformed £2.50 basic tees into something a little more interesting and certainly more Summery- here's the finished products!

 

Again, if i had covered the white parts more thoroughly this would have turned out better at the centre of the spiral!

All in all- I've worked out that the 3 t-shirts and shorts cost me £13.50 for the garments and I've only used about £4-5 worth of dye on this! Not a bad solution to liven up old basics before going away!

Any questions- just ask.

Hope this is helpful for someone- I found a lot of the stuff online a bit outdated and confusing to follow!

Kelly-Leigh x

E.L.F. Cosmetics Haul review

So up until a couple of weeks ago- i'd never even heard of E.L.F (or Eyes Lips and Face) Cosmetics. It's a budget beauty brand that specialises in loads of different kinds of make-up at almost obscenely cheap price points. They were founded in New York in 2004 and have expanded their franchise to an abundant amount of products that now sells online internationally.

After seeing a product featured in a magazine I went online to their shop and probably added a little too much to my basket. But with 12 products for £35 (including a free lip gloss) it didn't do too much damage to the ol' bank balance.

I didn't expect all to match up to higher end brands but wanted to get a variation of cheap alternatives to some products I already own to take away on holiday and on nights out etc without the worry of loosing them, after having a few MAC casualties slip drunkenly from my bag whilst out recently.

I'm only going to go in depth with a few products, but whilst my bundle of goodies were a little bit 'hit and miss' there were a couple of really good products- especially for the price.

The E.L.F. shimmering facial whip is described as a 'multi-purpose' colourant to brighten the face. It's available in a variety of colours including pink lemonade, persimmon, lilac petal and golden peach - but I went for the plain 'spotlight' colour which is silvery in colour for the purpose of being a highlighter on my brow and cheek bones. It was only £1.50 and one of my favorite products. I have really naturally matte and dull skin so highlighters are imperative for me. I've been meaning to try benefit 'high beam' for a while but you can't go wrong with this as a cheap alternative at a staggering £18.50 less for a similar effect product. 

I definitely will be buying this in another couple of shades to experiment- as you can see from the swatch on my skin its coverage is quite thick so you don't need a lot of product. I dab it in to mix into my base foundation- which is (the sadly now discontinued) MAC mineralize satin finish which in itself is quite dewy and illuminating.

I really love my £1.50 'healthy glow' bronzer seen on the top of my hand in the image above. Although its' only one tone the 'sun-kissed' it's a lovely colour for pale people like me to put a bit of colour into my cheeks and help blend my foundation into my neck and shoulders. This works particularly well to create a 'sculpted' look alongside the facial whip- i'd imagine even moreso if you got the 'golden peach' tone more appropriate to more olive skin tones.

I got the Eyebrow lifter & filler pencil in 'medium'- it was similar to another more expensive product I'd owned before- the Soap and Glory 'arch de triumph' double ended eyebrow shaping pencil which retails at around £8 compared to the £3.75 E.L.F alternative. 

This goes on to the brow really smoothly- maybe even too much so. I found it difficult to define the thinner part of the brows because the pencil is just so thick and the colour is quite dark for me. The 'ivory' highlighter end is actually quite pink- and although doing the job of helping define my eye make-up it doesn't really suit my NC/yellow based skin tone. I think I prefer the Soap and Glory one overall but this isn't a bad cheap alternative and is multi purpose.

My favourite product from this order is by far the 'High Definition Powder'. I'd read good things about this on various blogs before deciding to buy. Because I have such dry/ matte skin i've generally been really reluctant to wear powder on top of my foundation in case it dries out my skin and shows imperfections more.  At just £6 it was my most expensive purchase from E.L.F.

The description, though, described the powder as creating a 'soft focus' effect to the skin to help keep the complexion radiant looking. I ordered it in the 'shimmer' colour as i'd previously tried a translucent shimmering face powder from MAC that I got for Christmas and i really haven't been a fan nor used it much because of the unrealistic 'silver' finish it gave my skin.

I really love this product and have been using the powder-puff applicator everywhere on my face except the cheek bones to help seal my foundation in longer without diminishing the 'satin finish' of my foundation.

It has a slight but not 'overwhelmingly oranging' pigment to it and I do believe it retains the skins radiancy. Here's a picture of me wearing it on top of my usual foundation alongside both the facial whip and eyebrow filler and lifter pencil. I also have the healthy glow bronzer on my cheeks alongside a cream blusher blended in for a natural look.

The E.L.F. waterproof eyeliner pen just doesn't work for me at all. The reviews on the product website are brilliant but I have found it to be very translucent and i've had to add an additional liquid eyeliner layer on top for it to actually look black. Also with being a pen- i find the nib to be quite sharp and uncomfortable to apply whereas previous eyeliner pens i have used have been a little more flexible. At just £1.50 its' not too much of a devastating financial loss.

I bought these two lip products as alternatives to more high-end products I already have. The SPF 15  lip balm (on the right) in nude smells so lovely. It kind of has a minty fragrance which gives it the tingly feeling of a plumper on the lips. At £3.75 it's more expensive than the typical E.L.F products but it feels worth it for how moisturising it feels and I imagine if you had a problem with chapped or sore lips, this would be a really worth-while investment. 

They come in a variety of different pigments which aren't as strongly coloured as a lipstick but does add a tint to the lips while looking after them too! I ordered it in nude and it appears more pink on the site and more brown in person but I really liked the colour (the top left tone on the swatch- the top right is my free shimmer gloss in 'fantasize').  I've found these two colours work well layered on top of each other for a natural but not dull shade.

The bottom swatch is of the E.L.F matte lip colour in 'rich red' which is a long thin stuck almost looking like an eyeliner or mascara tube in appearance. It's kind of like a soft balmy lip liner which never has to be sharpened because it's twistable so i imagine it will last quite long. I've found it to be good for precision colour on the go- no more lipstick teeth! However as you can see from the swatch it's a little more pink than I hoped from the preview image and packaging- a common issue with red lipsticks however if you layer it on heavy enough it does undeniabley look red- however top ups may be needed to avoid that awful fading to pink thing.

Overall then- I will be ordering from E.L.F again. I wouldn't use it for integral base products like eyeliners, foundations as i have quite sensitive and fussy skin but for things like lipsticks it is a great cost effective alternative to spending a lot if you have to buy a bulk of items and certainly good as a back up/ top up product to take out and about or abroad. They also seem to have frequent offers on with both free delivery and products if you spend a certain amount.

Do you have any recommendations for further E.L.F products to try?

Kelly-Leigh x