Absorbent Silk Salt can be sprinkled onto wet silk paint or dye to create star-burst, comet and other effects. On properly stretched (taut) fabric it sucks the dye or paint towards itself and cause a distinct effect. Can be used with Setasilk, Tinfix Design, Dupont, Jacquard Silk - Green and Red Label, also Dye-na-flow, to name a few. Does NOT work well with Fiber Reactive Dyes, which strike too fast to be affected much. It will also work on thinner smooth woven rayons or cottons with thin paints like Setasilk and Dye-na-flow, although not as dramatic, and again, the fabric has to be under enough tension, and the paint wet, but not in puddles. Even works with thicker paints like Jacquard Textile Colors and Setacolor, if you thin them with a little water.
Best effects are if the grains of salt are separate, not in clumps. Let fabric dry completely after applying salt, then brush off the salt, then "fix" the dyes or paints per their instructions.
Made in: UNITED STATES (USA)
Average Customer Review
4.36
(45 Customer Reviews)
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MOST HELPFUL REVIEWS
4/18/2011
3
Used this product when I first started using silk paints. Buying sea salt in bulk locally works better.
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7 of 8 users found this review helpful.
5/13/2015
4
We used it with silk paints. It's critical that your paints be very wet when you apply the salt. An extra squirt of water can help. It worked great with Setasilk. It did not work nearly as well with Dye-na-flow. I did some experimenting after our first fail and found that I got the best results in the blue tones but still it wasn't comparable to Setasilk and it required a lot more work to get and keep the paintmaterial wet enough. Also for both paints the slower it dries the greater the effect so you can use that to help refine your results. In the end I decided to stick to Setasilk if I wanted strong salt effects but use Dye-na-flow at other times because it's a great product and quite a bit less expensive than Set-a-silk. ALSO - if you see the Dye-na-flow video by Dick Blick and get excited about the project where they throw a silk scarf in a bag with some paints be warned! They skipped steps and left out some info. I left a comment there with details under the name Nancy Cornett. It will save you time and effort to read it. Hmmm I noticed some comments on the subject were deleted so I think I'll copypaste the relevant part here to make sure Dharma customers get the full scoop :) "As noted elsewhere in these comments because of time constraints they left out a few things. I understand you can't fit it all in but to help others let me point out that the silk scarf she pulled out of the bag had been dried then ironed then put back in a clean bag. We also discovered and were told by others that the salt won't work when you just toss it in the bag like that. I did it that way the first time and you could barely see any change. You need to apply it flat and leave it on as it dries. So we pulled out our scarves laid them horizontal (doesn't have to be totally flat in fact some scrunching adds to the character) THEN put on salt. You probably want to spray with some more water and or paint at this point because the Dye-Na-Flowsalt combo requires a lot of moisture."
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12 of 14 users found this review helpful.
9/4/2009
2
does not work well with the water-based inks
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6 of 6 users found this review helpful.
3/25/2015
2
I didn't have the success I wanted with it. Instead I had far better results using the pink Himalayan salt from a grinder.
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3 of 3 users found this review helpful.
3/25/2011
5
These little jewels are amazing for dyeing.
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2 of 3 users found this review helpful.
MOST RECENT REVIEWS
4/25/2023
4
If you are wondering how these work with acid dyes I would say the results are meh. Doesnt seem to give the famous salt effects look from a quick Google image search. Not sure if its the salt or the chemistry of the dye (do acid dyes react too fast?) Have not tried with silk paints still in search of a salt effects technique that works well with dye.
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0 of 0 users found this review helpful.
12/26/2014
5
makes things change colors like the under the sea
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0 of 2 users found this review helpful.
10/15/2014
4
The salt does not work on dyes as dramatically as on paints. When used with dyes the salt does its job but on darker colors only. In addition to the 'halo effects' the salt reacts with dyes to produce nice color shifts and extra shading. If someone does not the color to change don't use the salt with dyes. Joanna
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1 of 1 users found this review helpful.
9/4/2014
5
Worked well and it doesn't take much so this will last a long time.
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0 of 1 users found this review helpful.
4/30/2014
3
Didn't produce as much effect as I would have liked but it may be that I didn't use it correctly.
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0 of 0 users found this review helpful.
2/28/2014
3
Its not bad but I prefer big crystals... Unfortunately they are hard to get.
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0 of 0 users found this review helpful.
10/9/2013
5
It works just fine. I am a watercolor painter so I am used to using salts occasionally and found this to work exactly like I had hoped.
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1 of 3 users found this review helpful.
10/8/2013
5
Perfect size for nice salt pattern on silk. Note: Some silk dyes react much more to salt than others - you have to experiment. It helps if the dye is moving on the silk so don't flood the whole fabric. The silk must be suspended and flat. Sprinkle lightly and evenly while wet.
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1 of 3 users found this review helpful.
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