Hello - I'm Brandon. I've been at Colorado Wholesale Dye since 2011, and I've helped countless people through the Tie Dye Process and taught them how to be successful with their Tie Dye projects. If you come and visit our store in Littleton, Colorado, I'll likely be the one guiding you through the dyeing process. This is the first 'blog' article I'm writing, and in the future, I'll be writing through the perspective of what I would teach or recommend if you came to our store. Or I'll write about whatever is interesting to me in dyeing. I don't know - this is new - this is the first time I've written down things that I've recommended for the past 14 years. We'll see where it goes!

Since this is my first post, I'll share a little more about my role at Colorado Wholesale Dye. Primarily, I focus on Aux Chemicals and helping people in person and over the phone. I enjoy researching, learning and documenting the history of Fiber Reactive Dyes and other things that exist in the Fiber Reactive Dyeing universe, especially concerning aux chemicals.

A guide to choosing colors

Whether you're a brand new dyer, or seasoned with years of dyeing under your belt, one of the things I commonly help with when you come to our shop is choosing what colors are best for your project. 

As for which colors look best together, that's totally a personal preference. In my opinion, you could take any combination of our colors, and it'll turn out great. That being said, sometimes a well thought out color selection can take what you're dyeing to the next level. 

Primary Colors

So, what colors should you choose? I usually start with what are considered the primary colors. Think of the colors like printer ink - Magenta, Cyan and Yellow. Those three colors match up with 
Fuchsia #8
Turquoise #51/51A
Lemon Yellow #38

Although those colors are considered primaries, some people prefer different options, and there's nothing wrong with that!
If Fuchsia is a little too pink for you, Bright Red #12 is a nice middle of the road choice. If you want a darker primary red, Fire Red #15 is my favorite. 

Turquoise might be brighter than the blue you imagine in your color line up. Some of our long time dyers choose Cerulean Blue #52 as their primary blue. If you want a REALLY dark blue, try Navy Blue #59 or Cobalt Blue #57. My two favorite blues are Sky Blue #56 and Marine Blue #70. 

Lemon Yellow is very bright! If you want something a little toned down, you could try Banana Yellow #36. Another option is the Marigold Yellow #35, but Marigold definitely leans into Orange territory.  

Secondary Colors

To pair up with the Primary colors, you might grab some secondary colors. The secondary colors are green, purple and orange. Unlike the primary colors there are no secondary colors that are considered 'standard' - whatever you like, you like! 

First up there's green. If you're going for a green that pops, Bright Green #46 might be for you. If you want bright, but want to be funky too, try Chartreuse #44. A good middle of the road green is Emerald Green #43 - Emerald might pop a little bit more if you put it next to Turquoise and Lemon Yellow. If you want a Dark Green, I would suggest my favorite green, Forest Green #42.

The Purples I typically recommend are True Violet #65 or Royal Purple #64. Purple's beautiful! But I'm not super into purple, so when I recommend purples, it's usually the most 'middle of the road' shades that don't lean super red or super blue. If you're a purple person, you'll know better what you want, and there are plenty of purple variations to choose from. 

And finally, Orange. In the world of dyes, if you're into color blending, it's super easy to make purples and greens. But it's very, very difficult to blend red and yellow into orange. If you want to include Orange in your project, there's Bright Orange #22 and Gold #34

Final Thoughts and My Favorite Colors

Past the rainbow of 'ROYGBV' colors, there's an abundance of other colors you can add to your palette. Black, odd shades, pastel shades - it comes down to the vision of what you want to create. You may already be familiar with Color Theory. If you're not, or if you need a refresher, it can help to look at a color wheel or read about it. Personally, I currently love playing with complementary colors, although fair warning, a lot of pro sports teams use complementary colors. I wasn't thinking about that when I made a purple and gold shirt that makes me look like a huge fan of a certain Los Angeles Basketball team, or a blue and orange shirt that I've had compliments on because of the local Denver football team. 

If I'm helping you pick out colors in our shop, and if it's appropriate for what you tell me you'd like to do, I'll usually always try to recommend at least one of my favorite colors. They change, but right now my favorite colors are:

(in no particular order)
Marine Blue #70
Forest Green #42
Bubblegum Pink #16 - (side note - Bubblegum and Forest look GREAT together)
Fire Red #15
Sky Blue #56
Gold #34
Teal Blue #55
Terracotta Concentrate #82