Bleach accident and how to fix it

[madamedefarge]

Somehow I managed to get bleach on my new polo shirt.  Yes, it was $6.99, but I still love it and want to wear it again, but the bleach stain is kind of obvious.  Is there any way I can get the colors to bleed so that it covers the spot, or should I invest in some Rit dye (costs almost as much as the shirt, but I really, really like this shirt)?  Any other suggestions would be much appreciated.

[razzly]

is it in a place you could put a patch over it? i've noticed that it's really popular now days to have large pictures from other shirts sewn onto random parts of shirts now. maybe you could do that?

[ma2maya]

You'll want to "neutralize" the bleached area using oxyclean. Don't waste your money on RIT. It is an all-purpose dye that dyes everything all-purposefully bad. It will eventually fade/wash out. If it is an all cotton shirt(or mostly cotton) fiber reactive MX dyes would be your best bet.

 However, your bleach spot will come out light than the rest of the shirt.  You could do  low-water immersion dyeing which would give a mottled/random coloration type effect which would make the bleach spot less obvious.

Dylon cold water dyes available at major craft stores are a type of fiber reactive dye that would work well too.

Kathy

[madamedefarge]

Thanks for the advice.  No, Razzly, unfortunately it's all over the front of the shirt in a kind of horizontal line.  Not many patches that would cover it, but thanks for the thought and for the suggestion.  And ma2maya, that is a lot of good information.  I know nothing about dyeing.  Thank you both.

[ma2maya]

Here's a great site to give you all sorts of info on dyeing
http://www.pburch.net/dyeing/faq.shtml

Kathy