Curing Metallic Fabric Paints
This post is about my personal and limited experiments with curing fabric paints. Each fabric paint product has SPECIFIC instructions for permanently setting the product into fabric. I decided to see if I could shortcut the process for myself. if you choose to try any of my methods you need to first test them under your own conditions: fabric, room temperature, iron/dryer/oven temperature and fabric washing process.
For my testing I only used cotton fabric. I am using two brands of paints: Jacquard and Stewart Gill. In this post I'm not going to compare and contrast the paints - I use them all. I'm just going to talk about making them permanent and washable on fabric. In the Jacquard line I use Textile Colors, Neopaque and Lumiere. In the Stewart Gill line I use True Colour, Colourize, Alchemy, Byzantia, Metamica and Pearlize.
This experimentation started because I did not realize how much work was required to permanently set these paints! The Jacquard products GENERALLY requires ironing on the reverse side of the fabric for 30 seconds. That's 30 seconds for every spot on the fabric. The Stewart Gill paints GENERALLY require ironing 2 - 3 minutes on the back followed by 20 minutes in a 270 degree oven or another 2 minutes of ironing on the front. That would be fine for a small piece but I couldn't bear it for a large piece of fabric or for a garment where ironing might be awkward. So, I started testing......
For my testing I only used cotton fabric. I am using two brands of paints: Jacquard and Stewart Gill. In this post I'm not going to compare and contrast the paints - I use them all. I'm just going to talk about making them permanent and washable on fabric. In the Jacquard line I use Textile Colors, Neopaque and Lumiere. In the Stewart Gill line I use True Colour, Colourize, Alchemy, Byzantia, Metamica and Pearlize.
This experimentation started because I did not realize how much work was required to permanently set these paints! The Jacquard products GENERALLY requires ironing on the reverse side of the fabric for 30 seconds. That's 30 seconds for every spot on the fabric. The Stewart Gill paints GENERALLY require ironing 2 - 3 minutes on the back followed by 20 minutes in a 270 degree oven or another 2 minutes of ironing on the front. That would be fine for a small piece but I couldn't bear it for a large piece of fabric or for a garment where ironing might be awkward. So, I started testing......
My first test focused primarily on the Stewart Gill paints because I use them the most. I painted a 1 yard piece of fabric in stripes.
Starting at the top:
Teal in Colourize, Black Pearlize, Gold Metamica, Bronze Byzantia, White Alchemy. Next I painted a wide stripe of Green Colourize and a wide stripe of Jacquard Fuchsia Dye-Na-Flow. On each of those I painted 3 stripes: Gold Metamica, Bronze Byzantia and White Alchemy.
After drying for 48 hours I cut the sample into 4 pieces. One as the control (untreated piece), one was ironed 30 seconds on the back and front, one was put in the dryer for 80 minutes and one was put in the oven at 270 for 30 minutes. All of these methods are MUCH LESS than the manufacturers recommendation. I took each cured sample and cut it in half washing one set in cold water and one set in warm water.
In the photo the samples are (L to R): original, dryer, oven, iron.
Starting at the top:
Teal in Colourize, Black Pearlize, Gold Metamica, Bronze Byzantia, White Alchemy. Next I painted a wide stripe of Green Colourize and a wide stripe of Jacquard Fuchsia Dye-Na-Flow. On each of those I painted 3 stripes: Gold Metamica, Bronze Byzantia and White Alchemy.
After drying for 48 hours I cut the sample into 4 pieces. One as the control (untreated piece), one was ironed 30 seconds on the back and front, one was put in the dryer for 80 minutes and one was put in the oven at 270 for 30 minutes. All of these methods are MUCH LESS than the manufacturers recommendation. I took each cured sample and cut it in half washing one set in cold water and one set in warm water.
In the photo the samples are (L to R): original, dryer, oven, iron.
The results:
Next I found Jacquard Versatex "No Heat" Fixer. The directions say:
"If you don't want to heat set your fabric paints then add a small amount (1-3%) of this fixative to your paint. Apply as usual and let sit for at least 5 days before any water exposure. Done!"
I selected 8 of my paints, added a little water (about 20%) and pained one band across the fabric with the paint only. Then I added a drop of Versatex to the remaining paint and painted another band. I left the samples to cure for 5 days. I did NOT iron them. I cut the samples in half and washed and dried one half and then sewed the samples back together. Here are the results.
The Versatex doesn't change the color or texture of any of the paints.
The only one that I can't show you is the Jacquard Neopaque samples. Why? Because I had the brilliant idea to use red Neopaque on dark pink fabric. Nothing shows in the photograph. From the sample results though I can tell you that the Neopaque, like Jacquard Textile Colors, doesn't seem to require any fixative or heat setting at all. It looked the same after washing with or without the Versatex.
- Water temperature makes no difference at all.
- The Colourize seems to not need any heat setting at all. There was no fading under any of the conditions.
- Heat setting in the dryer didn't work at all. Only the Colourize sample didn't fade in washing. All of the other paints degraded on the dryer samples.
- Pearlize performed beautifully with the oven and the iron samples. I estimate that I lost 10% or less of the Pearlize paint in these samples. I lost about 20% in the dryer samples.
- Metamica and Byzantia performed the next best but lost as much as 40 - 50% in the samples. Oven curing performed best, ironing the next best.
- Alchemy performed the worst. It requires the most dedication to heat setting. In my samples, I lost most of the Alchemy paints.
- They all performed the same when painted over the Colourize and Jacquard Dye-Na-Flow
Next I found Jacquard Versatex "No Heat" Fixer. The directions say:
"If you don't want to heat set your fabric paints then add a small amount (1-3%) of this fixative to your paint. Apply as usual and let sit for at least 5 days before any water exposure. Done!"
I selected 8 of my paints, added a little water (about 20%) and pained one band across the fabric with the paint only. Then I added a drop of Versatex to the remaining paint and painted another band. I left the samples to cure for 5 days. I did NOT iron them. I cut the samples in half and washed and dried one half and then sewed the samples back together. Here are the results.
The Versatex doesn't change the color or texture of any of the paints.
The only one that I can't show you is the Jacquard Neopaque samples. Why? Because I had the brilliant idea to use red Neopaque on dark pink fabric. Nothing shows in the photograph. From the sample results though I can tell you that the Neopaque, like Jacquard Textile Colors, doesn't seem to require any fixative or heat setting at all. It looked the same after washing with or without the Versatex.
This sample is Jacquard Lumiere Metallic Gold. In this particular sample I washed the right half. The top row is painted with the Versatex. You can see that I lost a little of the paint in the untreated sample but the washed side of the paint with the Versatex looks as good as the original.
This sample on the right is Jacquard Lumiere Halo Blue. In this sample, and all of the remaining samples, the washed portion is the left side. The sample on the bottom is without Versatex and the paint faded quite a bit. Probably as much as 30%. In the treated sample I did lose a bit of color (not as much as it appears in the photo though) but up close it's barely discernible.
The remaining samples are all Stewart Gill paints.
I already knew from the samples above that Colourize didn't seem to require any heat setting at all. This samples shows that the same holds for True Colour. The left side was washed and the top sample is the one with the Versatex added.
I already knew from the samples above that Colourize didn't seem to require any heat setting at all. This samples shows that the same holds for True Colour. The left side was washed and the top sample is the one with the Versatex added.
The next sample (on the right) is Silver Metamica. The Versatex (top) made a huge difference. I did have a bit of paint loss even in the Versatex treated sample but that might be acceptable for the convenience of not ironing or baking in the oven.
Byzantia (left) performed the same as the Metamica. The Versatex helped considerably. The biggest effect came with the Pearlize and Alchemy, both of which almost completely washed away in the untreated sample. The Pearlize sample is the bottom left and the Alchemy is the bottom right. Both of them are almost completely intact with the Versatex. So there, I'm done with this testing! I will be adding Versatex to all of my paints and will probably do a heat setting oven treatment. I think this approach will give me the best permanence to the paint and eliminate hours of ironing.
I hope this information helps you but before you rely on it, please test it for yourself.
I hope this information helps you but before you rely on it, please test it for yourself.
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