Friday night, the Lord was testing me. The weather was cold, rainy, and dreary— perfect for cozying it up with strange, sweaty bodies at David Bowie Night in Saguijo. At the same time, I had promised myself to try to go just one Friday night sober. Ya know, just for kicks, see if I survive, see if the world doesn’t implode etc. I was killing time at Megamall, seriously considering taking a bus to Makati (attempting to hail a cab would be a joke) before realizing how ridiculous I sounded at the lengths I would go for beer. Finally, I told myself: I said no to Bonchon chicken, I might as well say no to beer.

So I went home, shielded my eyes from Andok’s and their cheap booze, popped in a documentary about diet pills that work, and decided to dip dye some denim cut-offs.

Hello there.

I have never dyed anything that isn’t hair in my life and every day, I thank the holy spirit for Google.

Things you need!
-bleach (optional)
-fabric dye (I used Venus, 4.50 a pack)
-salt
-hot water

(Super easy instructions: bring water to a boil, pour in container (I used a basin at first), mix in dye, mix in salt (I used a handful), and dip/submerge shorts.)

Pro-tip: do not attempt to make dinner while dyeing stuff. You might end up with something like this:

I soaked the shorts in bleach diluted with water for maybe fifteen minutes then hung it up to dry a bit. It looked like this:

Not bad, not bad.

I had this super brilliant idea of dip-dyeing the cut-offs red. Red is a nice color; it’s the color of my hair, after all. I left my shorts to soak up all the dye for an hour then excitedly rinsed until the water ran clear. Only then did it dawn upon me that red was terrible idea. It looked like I pussy-bled all over my shorts.

I was too horrified to take a photo but it kinda looked like this:

I decided to bleach it again. Little did I know that bleaching denim for too long will turn it yellow. So from blood-stained, my cut-offs now looked pee-stained. With a complete disregard for perfection, I figured dyeing it purple would hide the yellow streaks.

It didn’t work, I was out of bleach, and I was tired. I decided to re-do everything on Sunday (Saturday was for getting my drank on).

On Sunday, I went to the neighborhood grocery to get more bleach (in Fresh scent this time. I had no idea bleach came in different scents!) and more dye. I figured I should just dye the darn denim yellow to make the “pee stains” look intentional. I also thought it would be “cute” to dye half of it yellow and the other half, pink.

Haha.

So I bleached it again and it turned into a magnificent shade of objectionable orange with some streaks of pee and pink thrown in.

By this time, I was ready to throw in the towel and punish myself for my ridiculousness with a hideous pair of shorts. “You like ugly clothes anyway,” I reasoned with myself. I almost gave up but decided to give it one last try, with blue dye. I was avoiding this color because, well, who dyes blue denim BLUE? This time, I used a tabo instead of a basin. I don’t know why I hadn’t thought of that on Friday night; it was easier!

Needs moar pictures of tabo!

Two bottles of bleach, several packs of red, purple, pink, yellow, and blue dye later…

SOMETHING DECENT. Don’t hate; I like it. I wish I dyed a different pair of shorts, though. I feel like a ruined a good thing lol.

Hey, does anyone know a quick way to get rid of the scent of bleach? That stuff smells so nasty!