After seeing how much better the dye take-up was on the under arms of my old T-shirts, I decided to try drawing on the shirts with anti-perspirant and then re-immersing them in the dye bath to see if those areas would become darker.
And it totally worked!
The bottom two shirts show the anti-perspirant stripes. I did a straight-across stripe on the left shirt, and then steamed the anti-perspirant in, which blurred the edges quite a bit. On the right shirt, I did a zigzag with the anti-perspirant on a dry shirt and just threw it back in the dye bath without wetting or steaming it first. That one had clearer edges, and I like it better. (Click photos to see larger)
In both cases, the anti-perspirant (I'm guessing it's the aluminum in it) totally attracted the dye and made dark stripes. And in both cases, they helped make the bright underarms much less noticeable!
I used this anti-perspirant (Dove Advanced Care, 15.2% aluminum zirconium tetrachlorohydrex):
I've also observed that the more I use this same dye bath, the stronger it seems to be getting, even though I removed the original avocado pieces before I even used it the first time. It just won't quit! I'm a little puzzled by that, but it's made it very hard to throw away. I just want to keep adding more stuff to it!
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