If you are looking to buy ice dye wholesale for a boutique or shop, the first thing worth knowing is that it is not like ordering blanks. Ice dye is made one piece at a time, and no two pieces come out the same. That changes what you can order, how you price it and how you sell it.
What ice dye actually is
Ordinary tie dye uses liquid dye squeezed onto tied fabric. It gives you the hard-edged spirals everyone recognizes, and it repeats reasonably well. Ice dye uses dye powder and a full day of melting ice: the fabric is folded, packed with soda ash, mounded with ice, and the dye is sprinkled dry on top. As the ice melts it carries the color down in a path nobody controls.
That melt is why ice dye looks like watercolor rather than stripes, and why a single crimson will throw off rose and rust at its edges while a pine green splits into teal and gold. It is also why every piece is different.
What that means for a wholesale order
- You are buying a colorway, not a pattern. Every piece in your batch will be the same colors and a different design. Photograph a few of them for your listings rather than one.
- Order a batch, not a re-order. Pieces dyed together belong to each other. Split the same quantity across two batches and the match is looser.
- It sells on the story. No two are the same, made by one person in Pennsylvania. That outperforms a flat product shot, because it is a reason to buy this one rather than a cheaper one.
- Sizes matter more than usual. You cannot re-cut a piece that sold. Ask us for a size run based on what actually moves.
Blanks we dye on
Comfort Colors for weight and a soft, broken-in hand. Bella+Canvas for a closer fit. Gildan and Jerzees where price matters. Independent Trading Co. for heavier fleece. Natural fibers take the dye best: cotton and cotton-rich blends hold color properly, while high-polyester blanks come out pale and patchy. If you have a blank you already sell, send it to us and we will tell you how it will take.
Minimums and turnaround
Twelve pieces per style, per colorway for a standard batch, mixed sizes welcome. Every quote comes with a written dye window based on what is already on the schedule. We do not quote a window we cannot hold, and we will tell you if the answer is January.
Printing on dyed blanks
We DTF and sublimation print, including onto our own hand-dyed blanks. A design printed on a one-of-a-kind dyed crewneck is something no catalog supplier can put in front of your customer.
Start a wholesale inquiry
Wholesale is by application and we take on a small number of accounts at a time, because one person dyes all of it. See how wholesale works and apply