Has anyone tried dyeing acrylic yarn for pony hair?

[ButtercreamDream]

So I decided to try me first Perfume Puff rehair.  I've seen different methods, but the one thing everyone seems to say is that you need acrylic yarn.  I didn't know if this is going to work out, so before I went out to buy 4 colours of yarn at $9 each, I figured I'd buy one (ball?  skein?  I don't even know what it's called, lol) in white, and dye it a couple of different shades to try it out.

Now that I have it home, the tutorials I've found on dyeing all say that you can't use rite dye, which was my plan, because the yarn is plastic and it won't hold dye.  Has anyone tried this?  I'm wondering if it will dye it well enough if all I want are pastels and I don't plan to wash it.  The popular method seems to be using diluted acrylic paint to 'dye' it, but I sort of doubt I will be able to fluff it up again afterwards. 

[Tabbyclaw]

Acrylic yarn cannot be dyed in a controlled/effective manner by anything that you'd be able to find for home use.

-Tabby
the princess with claws

[sd_dreamcrystal]

Acrylic yarn cannot be dyed in a controlled/effective manner by anything that you'd be able to find for home use.

-Tabby
the princess with claws

Actually I would imagine that maybe you could do a watered down paint solution... that is what I use for some of my frayed ribbon rehairs.. I have not tried it though. *considers trying that idea*

[gold.standard]

I've never tried dying yarn.
But I do worry about the dye leeching out onto the pony

[Uninu]

I would be worried about the colors leeching, too. I think watered down paint could work, but I also think it could make the yarn dry and coarse.

[sd_dreamcrystal]

I'm in the middle of testing coloring the yarn with watered down paint. I'll let you guys know soon

[sd_dreamcrystal]

ok so currently at best all the paint is going to do is tint the yarn.. and then tint is not very strong. I had this problem with the frayed ribbon and there was something I did to get it to hold the color.. I'll have to keep playing with it and let you know...

[aintnobuffalo]

I would be very interested to know myself! Thanks for sharing your experiment progress.

[rosierjay]

i've used rit dyes on acrylic yarn and it is kinds hit or miss, but it's worth a shot.
i normally go 2 to 4 shades darker than i'm hoping for and see what happens. sometimes i get the color i was shooting for. i leave it in the prepped liquid for double the time. don't know if it helps, but it makes me feel better, then i rinse it out and let it dry.
I'm kinda obsessed with brushed yarn rehairs right now. so i'm excited to see how they turn out. but yeah always rinse/wash out the colors or they will bleed or fade. better to get little to no color, than color everywhere.
it works best on acrylic blends rather than 100% acrylic