So cross! (After trying to dye something)

You can tell by the smell in charity shops that they don't wash everything!
Obviously nor do the donators.

Witzend good point about the 100% label.
In the early 2000s I bought several items from The Earth Collection in South Africa.
I bought two dresses one in a darkish green and one in brown( they had different colours each year)
I went off the brown one and used dye go and was going to re dye it
The result was a lovely shade of pale green .
I never did dye it
The sewing thread was presumably 100% cotton.
I am still wearing the dress now
Must check to see if they do those clothes in the UK.

Witzend - there is a solution - the dye you used was obviously for cotton/linen and did the job, but of course the stitching thread would be polyester and not absorb the dye to the same extent. You can buy a dye of the same colour for polyester (if you can identify that this is the stitching thread and seasalt should be able to tell you this) and dye the whole garment again. Good luck - very expensive item to ditch.

Extravagant but were I so fond of a garment think 'what the hell' and go out of my way to find another.

Why not use it for gardening, decorating or some mucky household jobs?

Oh, I have a pair of Primark jeans that were a funny shade of blue so I used a pack of Dylon Wash'n'Dye (it's great, and so easy to use) to dye them black. I was surprised that the stitching stayed blue...but being jeans, that was ok! I guess a lot of garments are made of natural fibres but are stitched with polyester thread - very strong, but it doesn't dye!

Did the same on a light grey hoodie. Coloured the dye spot in with felt pen and drew a pretty flower round it. Have to do this every time I wash it but get lots of compliments on it!!

If you have to do it every time you wash it, why are you still using felt pens? Use fabric pens instead and it'll be permanent.

Bathsheba because I’m too mean to buy extra pens when I have lots already!

I've tried dying over bleach but it never takes, I'm always left with a much lighter patch where the bleach mark was.

This thread is perfect for me. I have several M & S linen tunic dresses bought last year because I've put on weight.. I loved the simple V neck shift style and eventually had 5 of different colours.

One is a lovely raspberry colour and got a splash of bleach on the front mid chest. Just in the wrong place for a brooch to disguise it. The splash is so small, barely the size of a 5p coin. I kept it hoping for inspiration on how to disguise it and never thought of dying it.

Bearing in mind the stitching I will look for a dye as near to the raspberry as possible.
However I've just seen Yorksha thread above and she says she has tried dying over bleach and it never takes.

It's 3am and I'm weary (insomnia) and just can't recall if others had success with bleach.

Had anyone had success dying over bleach?

Coolgran, the dye I used for my bleach-spotted top did take perfectly - from ochre-ish to a dark olive green - it was just the stitching that didn’t.

But I did use the Dylon pre-dye first, to reduce the colour.
I think you’d need to do this, and hope to goodness that the stitching isn’t polyester!
The M&S trousers I dyed ages ago - cream to navy - evidently had polyester stitching but the result looked as if it was on purpose.
There was also a long, non-M&S linen skirt - a very faded navy that I re-dyed navy - turned out v well, but evidently the stitching was cotton.

Thank you. I’ll try for a dye as close to the original colour and will use the pre dye

To update: I got a Dylon machine dye in Poppy Red and used it to dye one white cotton M & S T shirt, a white cotton top and my linen/viscose dress with the bleach spot.
The T shirt and the top are so perfect.
The linen dress turned out really well putting the poppy red dye on top of the raspbetty pink original colour. It just came out a little darker. The bleach spot took the dye well, not perfectly, but sufficient that it is wearable.

Highly recommended. The dye was £4.99 and I did not use the pre dye. Thank you all for your guidance.