To Bleach or not ?

[Disney Ontario]

Hi. My DD13 wants to be Cinderella/Princess for halloween. Well our local bridal store has bridesmaid dresses $25.00. Pluss buy one, get one free. Small repairs mite be needed.We came home with two, two peice light blue out fits. But her dream was a white dress.

Can that kind of material be bleached?

She just watched "A Cinderella Story" (not the cartoon) and she was in love with her look. I kind of know this will be her last halloween outing before starting high school. So this is her dream.

 

[clh2]

I would assume that since you have bridesmaid dresses that they are dry-clean only. If so - I would be hesitant to put in a washing machine to do any sort of bleaching. Some of the bridesmaids dresses are made assuming that alternations would need to be made - so I'm not sure how well seams would hold up going through a "physical" type of washing. Geez - I hope that makes sense. Plus bleach is very degrading to cotton - and if the manufacturer used a cotton thread - you really might have some problems.

The problem with bleach is - if it wrecks the dress - you've got nothing.

Can you try to use a "rit" dye that is white? Or, can you add white to it, like lace, tulle, sparkly beading that would help it appear to be a little more white? If you get a nice sparkly white rhinestone kind of headpiece - there really will be far more attention to her face than the dress.

Good luck - I am in a similar situation - DD is a harem girl in her school's upcoming Aladin production. They can't have any midriff's showing, (school rules). And - the only costume we have seen is a combination of light pink and bright pink. DD hates pink. So - we are going to add scarves, and any "gold" embellishments I can find from JoAnn's. Hopefully she'll forget it's pink by the time we are done. I just can't sew much with that lightweight material, so I am better off starting with something and modifying it.