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[OmegaStar]

I recently purchased some cotton black duck cloth.  I would like to fade it a bit to a dark smokey color as my flight suit is also black and would like a little variation between the two.  My question is what is the best way to fade the duck cloth, besides constantly washing it?  Would adding a slight amount of bleach when washing it do the trick?  I look forward to hearing from everyone!

Thanks to all that can help!

[manakari]

I would avoid bleach as it may make it look spotty. RIT makes a color remover that can be picked up at places such as hobby lobby. That should do the trick

[Aysel]

do some test patches, cut a some small squares out and make up some solutions, wear bleach, RIT dye removed and anything else you can think of that would remove color and see which gives you the result your looking for, the other thing would be to try is remove the black color and then dye it the color that you want

[Baelin Halon]

DO NOT BLEACH IT!

Bleach and black do not equal grey, but more of a muddy brown.

Your best bet to fade the color is to try the color remover, you can also put it outside to let the sun fade it.
Other than that, you just can't beat wash wash wash, oh and wash it some more.

[Mar'eyce]

What he said. NO BLEACH!

Chlorine bleach should never be used on colured fabrics, and it will indeed turn it an ugly, yellowish brown.

I have never tried RIT colour remover to do anything except remove dye jobs that I did myself, so I'm not sure what it would do with the duck cloth. I would recommend testing it on a swatch before trying it on the whole piece.

Black cottons fade fairly readily with washing, and it would take only a few times in hot water to fade it out and give it a naturally weathered look.

[E'nam Atreuh]

if you can i found that leaving it for 4 days in the hot sun can bring the black down a bit.. and at times soak it in pool water or is just plain water!