Coloring a Sheepskin With Hair Dyes

When you need some color in your life! This is how I made my galaxy sheepskin with hair dyes.

I was a bit bored and needed colors. I wanted to learn how to color a sheepskin but all the instructions I could find in the internet were to dye it in a dye bath and that was not what I wanted. BTW, if that is what you need, you just take fabric dyes, make a dye bath, add vinegar(around 2dl or 1 cup, not exact sciense) or citric acid(I don't remember how much of that) to help it take to animal hair because fabric dyes are made for plant fibres. But, that will make a single color all the way dyed thingie and I think it looks flat and lifeless. I didn't want that, I wanted to keep the roots white.

Then I thought, waitaminute, if it matters if it is plant fibre or animal hair, human hair are animal hair, why not then try hair dyes for this!

I went to my bathroom cabinet and got my hair dyes, I have a pile of different colors because I like to make multicolored My Little Pony -hair (as I call them) for myself. And this was pretty fast coloring process when I got that far, I wasn't sure if the sheepskin will take color well or badly but at least mine took it very fast and very well.

You will need:

a sheepskin

normal hair shampoo

and conditioner

some hair colors, I used semi permanent "shock" colors from two different brand

hairbrush

cut open plastic bag, to protect your shower floor from hair colors

very large basin

plastic gloves for hair colors

Optional: shoerack or some other wire rack to help sheepskin dry airily

I am sorry I didn't think about pictures when I washed the sheepskin first.

I was thinking that since you need to wash hair before coloring, I better do that to sheepskin too.

So I tossed it into the shower, soaked it through and added ALOT of shampoo. Washed it and noticed I just can't get all the shampoo rinsed off. In that point I got my large basin, I use it even to wash rugs, but when you have large enough to move the sheepskin around in water, that should be enough. I rinsed the sheepskin in the basin twice(meaning: in two different waters, changed it when it got soapy) and was happy with it.

Let it hang for a while, I think I waited half an hour in the first time, so that most of the water have dripped out. Then take it to your hands like it was a rug and you are fluttering(?) the dust off of it outside, youknow, the whiplash-thingie you do.. Be warned, both you and the whole bathroom WILL be wet after this, but it will fluff the sheepskin nicely and it dries to nicer shape and quite a bit faster.

Leave it to dry airily, I have a cheap shoe rack from Ikea that I use in things like this. It's really handy.

Let it dry to next day if you want intensive color, it does not need to be fully dry for coloring. If you want more pastel colors, color it when still damp. You can perfectly fine just start dying it after you have whiplash-thingied it.

I just started adding color here and there, I first added color on the tips of the fur petting the fur lightly with color rubber all over my plastic gloved hands, and when I had gone through the fur with all the colors, then adding different colors rubbing it deeper. You get livelier color when you mix different color into one color spot.

The whole coloring bit by bit putting this and that color, rubbing it deeper, this took maybe half an hour. Don't overthink it, just enjoy!

If you want more pastel colors, I recommend mixing the hair dye with hair conditioner, I use that tactic when I make pastel colors to my hair, so I am pretty sure it will work here too and my next sheepskin will be made like that, it just didn't get into this instructable because I'm missing some colors I want there.

The wetter the fur is, more color will mix and might be less intensive too, I did this pretty dry so that I didn't mix all my colors to one blend. When you rub the colors into dry fur, it mixes less. You can even spray it with water if you want to mix the colors abit.

Let the colors sit a while, but as like I said, this is fast process! I left it for just a 15 minutes!

After the 15 minutes I came back and added ALOT of hair conditioner, it will help to wash the fur after coloring, keeping it nice after the whole process and it will blend colors abit. I put something like over 2dl or about a cup of conditioner and rubbed it well into the fur. Then I left it for 15 minutes again.

After that 15 minutes I rubbed the fur well, like washing dye off of your hair. I didn't put any shampoo or any other soap in this point, but many hair dyes will foam when you start to wash the color off after coloring. So I washed it like shampooing my hair, rubbing veryvery well all the loose dye off. It took 4 rounds(4 different clean waters) of rinsing in the basin.

After wash I let it sit on the floor for a few minutes to get most of the water out, then put over our sauna door to drip lots of the water off, like I did after washing it with shampoo. After an hour this time, hoping me and bathroom would be less wet after whipping the skin, no such luck, I did like I did after first wash, fluttering-whiplashing the water off of it to make it fluffy. Then I left it to the shoerack to dry.

Next morning I moved the shoerack with sheepskin to my living room so that it will dry faster, and in the evening I turned the fur side down so the skin side would dry faster. I wasn't in hurry so I left it in peace for two days.

When it was fully dry, I brushed it through with my hair brush. And ready. Now I have a Galaxy Sheepskin with my galaxy rug!