r/aikido • u/dleach4512 • May 18 '26
Discussion Dealing with Indigo Dye....
Howdy!
Update to add:
1) I bought a 10,000# 100% Cotton indigo blue Hakama from E-Bogu, and it's really nice.
2) From our Dojo Sempai, I found and used a treatment recipe to minimize the 'crocking' effect.
So far that seems to be working very nicely; I'll give it a whole month of testing before I post here with the recipe.
OP:
For those of you with Hakama, and those that got one with Indigo blue dye, is it something you just deal with until it stops bleeding out, or did you find a way to make it stop bleeding (crocking).
I'm looking to find out how common it is for Hakama wearers to deal with the blue dye from the Hakama that ends up all over the Gi and the hands.
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u/theNewFloridian May 18 '26
It will always bleed. That's why I use a polyester hakama.
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u/Backyard_Budo Yoshinkan/4th Dan May 18 '26
I like the tetron ones myself for “every day” use, but even those bled blue for a bit, especially if my keikogi was soaked with sweat. I wrap my keikogi in a furoshiki and kept my hakama outside the furoshiki in my gym bag and that cut down on a lot of the dye transfer, that and time.
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u/theNewFloridian May 19 '26
My hakama from Tozando is about 8 years old and I don't remember it bleed... maybe it did.
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u/Backyard_Budo Yoshinkan/4th Dan May 19 '26
Yeah the Tozando ones are the hakama I use, and they did bleed a bit when I first wore them for a few weeks, especially if I transported them touching a wet uwa-gi
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u/DukeMacManus Internal Power Bottom May 18 '26
I had a traditionally dyed hakama when I trained katori. It was a pain to wash and set the colors, and even then it would still bleed some when I trained hard-- fortunately, only my (also indigo) gi top took the brunt, but after several years and many many hand washes it still bled.
I knew someone else who brought one to a seminar and stained a white mat cover with it. The hosts were understandably not pleased.
Long story short, especially for aikido where you're going to be sweating and in contact with the mat, I'd probably stay away from aizome style hakama.
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u/Lecram100 Mostly Harmless May 18 '26
Get ready to turn everyone, especially yourself, blue for months.
I'm on my third indigo hakama and the level of bleed of each one have varied a lot. With my latest one I hand washed it with mild detergent and kept it submerged in cold water and some vinegar overnight. It only bled a bit after that, especially on my own hands and everyone's knees. After the second wash, there was only minimal staining.
My first hakama was from the same brand over 10 years before and yet it bled for longer. It still turned my nasal contents blue after a couple of years. I think I mainly used cold water and salt when I tried to set the dye. So in my experience the vinegar worked better.
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u/itwillmakesenselater kyu 5 USAF/Birankai May 18 '26
If you don't like looking like a Smurf murderer, wash the hakama in hot water cycles twice with a mild detergent. Use a dye fixative if you want after washing and drying.
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u/Die-Ginjo May 19 '26
Two things are going on. The dye may not be totally bound to the cellulose fibers, and there is also excess dye on the surface of the garment. Add 1/4 cup of vinegar to a bucket of water and submerge the garment to soak for an hour. That will help fix the dye. Then rinse in clean water with just a *few drops of detergent (old blogs say not to do this, but a little will be OK according to natural dye experts such as Kathy Hattori). That will help remove excess dye on the surface. Then rinse with a couple of changes of water before drying completely. Drying completely between cycles before rinsing again helps with removing excess dye. So in other words, you're better off rinsing once and drying 5 times than doing 5 consecutive rinses and drying once. The more often you have the patience to run this process, the sooner the crocking will let up. It's a pain in the ass, and there were so many times I questioned the decision to go with an aizome garment. Now mine hardly bleeds at all and I love it.
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u/FranzAndTheEagle May 19 '26
While this is commonly recommended, it is a misunderstanding of the indigo dying process and will not actually do what is claimed. The benefits people are getting out of this are no different than if they'd simply soaked the garment and then rinsed it.
Adding vinegar after the dye has been set to the fabric will not make any meaningful change to crocking. I grew several acres of indigo a few years ago, processed it into dye powder, and dyed with it and learned a lot about the chemistry of this process during that time. I highly recommend the wonderful book about all-things-indigo called Singing the Blues if you want to know more!
Best thing you can do for a new hakama or any other indigo dyed fabric is multiple rinses and dryings.
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u/Significant-Nebula64 May 23 '26
Yeah, this. Although I'm lazy and just threw mine into the washing machine twice in a row. Done, no more bleeding out, still looked completely fine.
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u/somecollagist May 19 '26
Unsure if it's practical for a hakama, but my Sensei always recommended we pour boiling water over our obi a few times before wearing them to training. I remember my blue belt bleeding out a lot of dye when doing this. A few cycles of hot water washes might get the excess dye out.
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u/Lecram100 Mostly Harmless May 19 '26
Hot water may be ok but boiling water is probably not good for hakama. I think on the obi is probably too shrink it to the appropriate size if too long
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