Teefury

Um... I got a stain on my Laugh Every day shirt (http://www.teefury.com/archive/914/Laugh_Everyday/) and tie dyed a pale blue spiral on to cover it, but I wouldn't have ever bothered buying a shirt from TeeFury in a color I hate- it'd be way less hassle to just wait and buy it from the artist's redbubble.

I can only speak from my own experiences, but don't I dye t-shirts. I simply don't know how the print will react with the dye. And just because someone managed it, doesn't mean I'll be successful. Do I really want to risk damaing the shirt? No.

About 15 years ago I ran a small T-shirt design business myself. The inks we used were very robust and even they got affected if something heavily dyed (eg. Jeans) was washed with them; usually resulting in a dark irregular stain that didn't wash out.

Besides, the design has been printed to work on the color of shirt, if you radically alter the shirt color then you could affect the color of the design from underneath.

As Petrichor said, if you hate the color shirt don't buy it. Most artists have their work available elsewhere. Pay more to get the color you want or risk wasting money on damaging dye + the wrong color shirt and potentially ending up with no shirt at all.

Long story short, don't dye.

I wouldn't suggest it if only for the fact that you're trying to dye a dark color already. I don't think you'll be able to die a red shirt orange or blue. As has been stated, if you don't like the color, you shouldn't buy the shirt. I personally have not run into a case where I wouldn't buy a shirt based on it's color.

For me the art is important, I can find a way to wear any color if I like the design.

There was a forum post awhile back by someone who dyed their TeeFury shirt. Here's the link:

http://www.teefury.com/forum/2659/How_to_Dye_Your_Teefury_Shirt/

Seems to work pretty well, at least on white and cream shirts :) I don't think there's anything you can do to change a red shirt, though.

Try 'bleach tie-dye', rubber band bunches of faric and wash with plenty of Sodium Hypochloride (Bleach), for exreme effect, soak in bleach - then wash cold/cold minimum soap. Red responds to bleach dramaticly ! you may want to drip wax onto the actual pattern (to prevent bleach from wiping it out), wax washes out in hot water so you may also get some shrinkage...or just leave it waxy for a few washes (cold/cold).

If you want to just make it less bright, you could soak it in salt water and leave it to dry in the sun to lighten the color.