Review | Tulip SuperBig One-Step Tie-Dye Kit

Reported by Maria del Pinto

[This site participates in the Amazon.com affiliate program. The product reviewed in this article was provided to Craft Critique as an editorial sample, but this is not a sponsored post.]

Tulip Super Big Tie-Dye Kit
Tulip Super Big Tie-Dye Kit

Summer is coming, and what says summer more than tie dye?

The Tulip One-Step Super Big Tie Dye Kit provides almost everything you need to have a fun tie-dye party or project for an easy summer vacation kids craft project. The only thing you need to have on hand is the natural fiber item to dye, along with a large plastic zip lock bag, scissors and paper towels (or rags). These are items I usually have around the house, so it was no problem to get started on a project.

Growing up, my family used to tie-dye old clothing to give it new life. I come from a large family, so there were plenty of hand-me-downs available to us kids to wear or craft with. An old shirt could easily gain new life by just adding some new color and an accent or two.

Tulip Super Big Tie-Dye Kit box contents
Tulip Super Big Tie-Dye Kit box contents

The Tulip One-Step Super Big Tie Dye Kit box contains:

  • squeeze bottles
  • 12 dyes: black, violet, purple, blue, turquoise, green, lime, yellow, orange, brown, red and fuchsia
  • 40 rubber bands
  • 16 gloves
  • A reusable surface cover
  • Project guide & instructions

The dyes are in powder form, and they are already in the bottle in this kit.  This is great because I did not have to activate any colors that I did not intend to use for a specific usage.

Tulip Super Big Tie-Dye Kit dye bottle with powdered dye

The back of the box shows the different techniques that are explained in the design sheet.

Tulip Super Big Tie-Dye Kit Patterns

The instruction guide is pretty straightforward and easy to follow. It shows how to do a variety of designs:

  • bullseye pattern
  • swirl pattern
  • gradation pattern
  • crumple pattern
  • folding pattern
  • sponging pattern
  • sunburst pattern
  • free hand designs

The dyes themselves are very simple to use. You fill the squeeze bottle 1/3 of the way up. Shake the bottle with your gloved finger covering the tip. I found that filling the container all the way up without shaking it first did not result in the powder dye mixing well. Once the powder is mixed, you can add more water until it dilutes to the desired color shade. You can change the hue by adding more or less water (depends on how faded the color you are looking for) to the squeeze bottle. Then just squeeze the bottle, or shake it over the project, until you have the color coverage that you are looking for.

Tulip Super Big Tie-Dye Kit project

One thing that I discovered is that if I did not saturate the project with dye, the project will come out looking faded. Be aware of this when adding color to projects! You can see above that I really saturated the project to get maximum color coverage. I just kept adding color until I had most of the shirt covered. I then let the color dye soak into the shirt for around 35 hours inside of a ziplock bag. The next morning, I washed and dried the shirt according to the manufacturer's directions.

To finsh the shirt, I added a few rhinestones to it.

Tulip Tie-Dye Shirt

The fuchsia shirt is great and I am very happy with the color results.

To give you a broader idea of the type of coverage you can get with these dyes, below are some photos I took at a trade show of various projects that were dyed with the Tulip Tie-Dye product. These are a selection of tie-dyed onesies.

Tulip Super Big Tie-Dyed Onesies

The colors are bright and cheerful. However, don't be mislead by them. You must saturate (I can not stress this enough) the project with dye to get these results.  Otherwise, the colors will come out pretty but not as vibrant.

Tulip Tie-dye Caravan Accessories

So plan accordingly and buy extra dye if you want to have really vibrant results.

Tulip Super Big Tie-Dye colors

For more projects ideas, I suggest paying a visit to the ILovetoCreate website.

Tulip Super Big Tie-Dye hair band

The Tulip One-Step Super Big Tie Dye Kit can be found online at Amazon, and at your local large general crafts stores.

Tips:

  • To get good color results, you need to saturate the item with the color.
  • Wash projects in cold water to maintain color longer.
  • Don't forget to heat set projects.
  • I found that if I left the project in a closed large plastic ziplock soaking for an extra 24 hours, I got much better color saturation. I love bright colors so the results were quite pleasing.
  • You do not have to pre-soak the projects in soda ash or other chemicals before you tie-dye. Just wash it to remove fabric sizing, and do not use fabric softener on the item before starting the dye process.

Pros:

  • The supplied squeeze bottles make it easy to mix the dyes and use them.
  • You don't have to waste product because you only mix the colors you want to use.
  • Instructions are easy to use.
  • I had very little fading after the first wash.
  • Easy to use, squirt the project like you would a bottle of mustard or ketchup.

Cons:

  • I had to saturate the projects with colors, so the colors did not go as far as the box implied that it would. However, since I liked the color results I felt the product was a good investment.
  • It can get messy if you don't keep a vigilant eye on the kids, so make sure you use the plastic surface protecting sheet. (This is a great outdoor project if you happen to have light-colored rugs in your home!)
  • The squeeze bottles squirts just like a ketchup container would, so you will get drops of color all over! If you only want color in a specific area, I would suggest taping it off before you start to protect your item from color splashes.

What is your favorite tie-dye product? Do you have any tie-dye tips to share with our readers? We would love to know if our readers prefer these types of kits over individual products and why or why not?

Contributor

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