Best way to dye a spandex mask?

I’m currently working on a custom, Homecoming/Into the Spiderverse-inspired suit and I was hoping some of you experts would be able to help me.

So far I only have a couple of the pieces - a red hoodie and a spandex mask which I bought a few years ago - just a standard red spandex mask from eBay - but since then my plans have changed and I want to make it black instead of red. My nearest craft store has a few options for black fabric dyes but I wasn’t sure which one would work best (if any at all.)

I read online that spandex on its own cannot be dyed and so you can’t dye any material containing more than 10% spandex. There are no labels on my mask so I can’t be sure how much is spandex and whether it contains any other materials. So far I have tried watered-down acrylic paints on a small patch of the material, but after soaking for a day the best I could get was burgundy - far from the pure black I was aiming for. Is this a sign of the material not reacting well to dyes? (I only ask because I don’t want to waste money on dyes if they aren’t going to work.)

Thanks in advance for any help you can offer.

P.S. A (badly) edited photo of my plans for the hoodie:

It continues to astonish me that over the course of just 14 hours a thread can get almost a hundred views yet not a single piece of help/advice.

No matter, I decided to carry out further tests in the hopes that I would accidentally stumble across something that works. Here is the aforementioned first test of diluted acrylic paint on a piece of scrap fabric:


As you can see, nothing like the pure black I was aiming for. For my next test I increased the ratio of paint:water. Hopefully this will have work better.

I’ll post my results later.


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https://www.jacquardproducts.com/dye-na-flow.html You could try this.

Dylon seems to be one of the best ive seen. Can also be used to dye clear plastic for masks and eyes. I see its been 24 hours sjnce your first post and now you've had 2 hopefully helpsful posts.....

As the Klingons would say.... "Today is a good day to Dye!!".


Sorry.

Many thanks to you both!
doppelganger: as luck would have it my local craft store is currently having a sale on all Dylon products. I also read that if you mix salt into the dye it somehow makes it react with the spandex better. (This is becoming less of a costume build and more of a mad science experiment! )
montysaurus: that’s another great option for me to consider. If the Dylon dye doesn’t work out I’ll definitely give that a shot.

I understand wanting to work with what you have but like... Why not just buy a black spandex mask? It can't cost more than what you're spending on dyes.


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I should probably post a small update just to tie off this thread

Thanks to the great suggestions above I bought some Dylon fabric dye and followed the instructions on the packet to dye my mask (mixing in some salt and fabric softener as I read this can help the dye react with spandex better.) However, the best I could get was a burgundy colour - very similar to the results of the acrylic paint test above. Then, when I rinsed out the mask as per the instructions on the packet all the colour just came right out. In the end I decided it was less trouble to just buy another mask.

Oh well, I guess it was fun to experiment. [emoji4] The new mask should arrive later my week - by then I will hopefully have the lenses and face shell completed.

EDIT: for anyone who may be interested, a link to my Spider-Man costume:- https://www.therpf.com/showthread.php?t=292169