Why I am not a textiles manufacturer: the ugly truth.

This weekend I had a most splendidly relaxing weekend hanging out with some of the people I love the best (Mia Sorella, you didn’t show up in time, so you missed out!). However, whilst said weekend was wonderful, there was also some sadness:

R.I.P. to my favourite t-shirt.

You have to understand that I bought this shirt in America. It’s the softest, most flattering, perfectly fitting t-shirt I’ve ever owned, and only its colour stopped me wearing it every day of the last two years! It was bright pink, so I don’t really know what I was thinking when I bought it, but I was high on life when I was travelling in America two years ago.

And eating lots of hamburgers releases endorphins!

However, when I went to put on said shirt last week, I noticed I had spilt bleach on it. Either that or my sister’s cat, who likes to get into my drawers, had pissed on it. (Can cat pee bleach clothes?) However, I do have a love affair with bleach that has seen me ruin other items of clothing in the past. Not wanting to simply throw away my prized possession, I decided to dye it. I also happen to have a love affair with black, it’s a pink shirt; how hard could it be? My biggest concern was getting dye on my hands - I was sure the colour transfer of black to pink would be a cinch!

It would seem that in primary school I must have failed primary and secondary colours 101. In fact, I can’t even remember if secondary colours are what they are called! I know that red and yellow makes orange, and blue and yellow makes green. But equally, I assumed that black with anything just makes black. It does with hair dye. Back in the day – and by the day, I’m only talking a couple of years ago – I used to dye my hair black all the time, and the beauty was that it didn’t matter what colour you started with, black trumped all. If your hair was light brown, it went black; if red, it went black; if brown – I assume you are getting my point! At one time, I had to get my hair stripped, because it was so black it looked blue. That, and I hadn’t realised there was such a thing as blue-black, and had mistakenly bought that shade. So, the only colour that trumps black is maybe blue and I looked like an emo! Epic fail.

This is a picture of me with blue-black hair. Unfortunately, Clairol has a better colour palette than the Microsoft paint application. I like to think my drawing is an attempt at Manga. I also know that it is yet another epic fail – but I do like the dog collar!
(N.B. I have never, and never will in the future, worn a dog collar. Or been emo. Note the matching shoes to dog collar – this is in no way an emo trait.)

After soaking the t-shirt in the dye for about three times as long as I needed to to ensure the colour stuck, I washed it and dried it and was horrified to realise that pink and black, in fact, makes purple. PURPLE! It’s quite a nice purple; I’d be more than happy to wear it. If it wasn’t for the small issue of black and bleach stain equalling BLUE. My best-favourite t-shirt is now purple and BLUE! It looks like a giant bruise. It's a giant assault on my eyes, and I'm devastated!

How could this happen?!! My hands are still completely flesh coloured, and yet I must now consider whether or not to dye the entire shirt purple, or blue. I wonder if that will make it turquoise? This would be a real issue as I'm not wearing turqoise until I'm at LEAST fifty five.
Methinks I should just dye it in Clairol!