Ask Tug: Are there colored V-Neck undershirts beyond the basic black, white, & grey?

6/21/09 Update – Check out this post to read how you can get your white cotton undershirts or t-shirts professionally dyed any color you want.
Ask Tug: Where Can I Find Kirkland Signature Black Crew Neck Undershirts?

For those of you who have been looking for colored undershirts, you have probably already discovered that it’s rather difficult to find undershirts in an assortment of colors outside of the typical white, black, and grey.

I’ve had several readers write in lately asking for suggestions on where to find them and I’ve provided some suggestions in the following post:

Ask Tug: Looking for non-white colored V-Neck men’s undershirt

While the suggestions in that article have helped out some readers, one reader emailed me to let me know he found some others. Here are portions of our email exchange:

Hey Tug, thanks for the link.  I wasn’t able to get any results, it seems that the alfani blue shirt isn’t sold any more, and those american apparel ones have such a huge neck hole which I though looked pretty ridiculous when I put them on.  However, I did want to tell you I just found some great looking colored fitted v-necks at Banana Republic.  I only saw one in the entire store, but they sell them on their site and have a nice selection of around 8 different colors!  Three of the colors are even going for 10$ right now.

I emailed him back letting him know that the blue Alfani v-neck undershirts were still being sold at Macy’s department store and also asked for more information about the Banana Republic v-neck shirts he ordered. He emailed me back with the following links:

Fitted Tee’s page (prices range from $9.99 – $16.50 per t-shirt):
Colors: french blue, blue heather, oatmeal heather, gull grey, pink sand heather, green fly, saucy red, spruce, spinach, minot blue, cruise blue, orange heather, rosewood, and cambridge green
http://www.bananarepublic.com/browse/category.do?cid=35922

Essential Tees (prices start at $16.50 per t-shirt):
Colors: black, white, dark charcoal
http://www.bananarepublic.com/browse/category.do?cid=5436

The Fitted Tees above are offered in v-neck and crew neck and do come in a variety of colors, however, they are standard t-shirts and not specifically undershirts. That’s not to say regular tees can’t be worn as undershirts, because some surely can be. But t-shirts are usually made out of slightly heavier fabric than undershirts so they may be slightly warmer to wear.

How about Dyeing undershirts the color you want?

Not too long ago, a reader wrote in looking in for some tall colored undershirts for her husband, and in the post I thought it might be a good idea to try finding a long white undershirt that fit her husband and try to dye it the color of her choice. The idea was inspired from my childhood when Mom Tug would pick up clothing dye from the local market and use it on some of our clothes that had been color damaged in the wash.

So recently, I was at the local grocery and decided to pick up some Rit Dye (color TAN 16) so I could give it a try. You can dye clothes in the washer itself (which Mrs. Tug would never let me do), in hot water in the sink, or in a large pan of hot water on the stove. In an effort not to get myself in trouble with the wife, I decided to pull out my old turkey fryer and do the experiment outside. To my surprise, the undershirts I dyed actually turned out really nice so I am definitely going to try dyeing more undershirts some other brighter colors and report back here.

The test subjects were both 100% cotton undershirts (5.11 Tactical & RibbedTee) as dyeing is not recommended for 100% polyester, 100% acrylic or fabrics with special finishes. Here are some before and after pictures:

Tags: Ask Tug, colored crew neck undershirt, colored undershirt, colored v-neck undershirt, dyeing cotton t-shirts, dyeing cotton undershirts, dyeing shirts, dyeing t-shirts, dyeing undershirts, dyeing white undershirts

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