How To Dye Your Own Hadatai/Skinsuit Fabric
There are very few skinsuit makers in the world, and they are all based overseas. Even though they are usually not too expensive, wait times can be very long.
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I was in a situation where I needed just the glove portion of the skinsuit but was in a time crunch. The only problem is, there is no spandex fabric that matches "kig pink"! After lots of experimenting, I figured out a method on how to turn white spandex into the perfect fabric for making your own hadatai!
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Here is a step-by-step guide on how I did this.
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What you will need:
Tangerine Rit
All-Purpose Dye
A very large pot
Tongs
4-Way Stretch White
Matte Milliskin Spandex
Before you start, make sure your fabric has been washed either by hand or in the washing machine on warm (not hot) on a delicate cycle. This is very important, as there can be residues on the fabric that will cause splotchy dyeing. You do not need to dry it after, as the fabric should be fully damp before submerging into the dye pot.
First, I filled up the large pot with 2 gallons of water, 1 cup of vinegar, and one drop of liquid dish soap, and put it on the stove. You will want to get the temperature of the water up to at least 140°F/60°C, and this will take a long time.
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Add 1/4 of a teaspoon of the tangerine Rit dye to your 2-gallon mixture, and stir. It's a very small amount, but it will work.
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I did small test squares of fabric until the color matched my skinsuit. The larger the fabric size, the more saturated the mixture should be.​​​​
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After lots of swatching, I found ideal results soaking the fabric for about one minute at 155°F for a small piece. As you can see on the left side, I soaked one at 180°F for 1 minute 20 seconds, and it was way too dark. The lighting in my kitchen made these appear a lot more orange than they really are. ​
When it was time to do a big chunk of fabric, I decided to dye it in increments of 30 seconds (I set a timer on my phone to manage this). Dunk the damp fabric into your pot, and very thoroughly stir and knead the fabric in the mixture with your tongs. I had a big bowl to the side, and after the 30 seconds was up, I'd use the tongs to lift up the fabric and place it in the bowl. I'd then take the bowl of fabric to the sink and rinse in cold water and assess the color. I would repeat this process 4-5 times until the color was dark enough. Whenever the dye bath looks clear, add another 1/4 teaspoon of dye (you may do this multiple times).​
Once you are satisfied with the color, rinse the fabric in the sink with cold water. After this, I chose to put my fabric in the washing machine on a rinse cycle to wring out excess water, and then I hung the fabric outside to air dry.​​​​​​​​
I then followed this tutorial on how to sew your own gloves. They looked good, but I felt like they turned too light when worn in comparison to my skinsuit......so I put the gloves in the same mixture for 20 more seconds, and the remaining fabric back in another minute the next day.
The above images are my re-dyeing attempts. You can see the difference in how much darker I needed to make it in the right image.
My dyed fabric in comparison to my Cantillon hadatai
Finally, it matches my mask!