Dye, cream hose, dye!

[Tobus]

Interesting. I've never heard of using tea to stain clothing on purpose!

I've already got the Rit dye, so I'll give it a shot this weekend. I'll take before and after pictures.

[DougC]

RIT dye is pretty strong stuff...the kids on my lacrosse team use it to dye nylon lacrosse heads. I feel pretty good that it will dye hose too. As someone said, go one shad darker than you want...then work with the soak time until you get your result. Remember, you can always soak your hose again--but, you can't take the dye out.

[Sir William]

Interesting. I've never heard of using tea to stain clothing on purpose!

The British Army found their white tropical uniform tunics drew fire while on operations in the Northwest Frontier, so dyed them with tea. Led to the adoption of the local Indian made cloth that we know today as "khaki."

US Marines who landed in Cuba in 1898 (Spanish-American War) found their usual landing uniform consisting of a dark blue coats, dark blue flannel shirt, and sky-blue wool trousers was a bit too warm for comfort so switched to their white cotton (or older linen issue) undress coats and and trousers. They then found they had the same problem as the British so dyed their uniforms with tea and coffee to get the same khaki effect. US sailors ashore with the Marines did the same to their whites. Later in the year both the Army and Marines began issuing khaki uniforms to replace the tea and coffee dyed uniforms.