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Direct dyes are usually cheap and easily applied for use on cotton and other cellulose fibres
such as cotton, rayon, and linen. A product called Retayne, which is an ionic bulking agent which
essentially "glues" the dye into the fibre, works very well to make fabric dyed with direct dyes
washable without bleeding of the dye. While many of the direct dyes are not very lightfast, there
are some dyes in the class that may be more lightfast than similar shades of fibre reactive dyes.
All direct dyes perform rather poorly with respect to wash fastness. However, there are special
after-treatments which may be used to solve this problem.