What chemical(s) is(are) used to help in colour-fastness during dyeing?

Question

Ok. So I recently did a 5000km roadtrip through the Canadian Maritime Provinces. During this trip, my friend that lives in Halifax told me to make sure I got a PEI Dirt Shirt when I visited the island. He also told me... to forget BUYING a shirt when I can just make my own. Excellent idea I thought!

So I'm back home now and I have about 2 pounds of red dirt from PEI. I have 12 white t-shirts to dye and am pretty much ready to get to work on them... After doing some research however, I've found that the process of dyeing these shirts is not as simple as throwing them in a bucket of mud for a few days.

Basically, I need to know what chemicals or solutions are used to help hold the colour in a fabric during the dyeing process... I have a feeling if I dye these shirts with the soil without using some sort of dyeing catalyst... the colour will fade in a few washes and my dirt shirts will just be a dull pink!

Answer 1

Here is an example process from a professor at West Texas A&M University, who goes by the name of "Dr. Dirt."

http://www.wtamu.edu/~crobinson/DrDirt/d...