This TikToker Used Fabric Dye to Customize Her Bathroom In an Unconventional Way

Beaded curtains likely bring back memories of your teenage bedroom, especially if you were a ‘90s teen. One TikToker took inspiration from the throwback click-clack of beads from a bygone era, creating her very own DIY beaded curtains that look decidedly cool in her grown-up bathroom.

Content creator Lizzie Darden recently shared a video on TikTok of her recent retro-inspired project. In her caption, she wrote that she was “feeling nostalgic for the purple beaded door curtain I had when I was 10✨.” Using a few key supplies, she turned a spool of $14 clear craft beads from Amazon into a chic beaded bathroom window curtain.

In the clip, Darden shares that she cut the beads into strands of equal lengths to fit the window space. She then combined a trio of dye combinations using fabric dye for synthetic materials from Rit to turn the beads into her preferred colors of baby blue, amber, and citrine. 

After waiting until the beads were completely dried, Darden used Gorilla Glue to attach them to a wooden dowel, before hanging them with curtain brackets. The end result: A kitschy beaded curtain in the window of her shower, which matches perfectly with the modern touches she’s added to the bathroom’s 1960s feel.

If you want to try this at home, Rit’s creative director, Helena Kim, tells Apartment Therapy how to get the job done. “The key here is temperature and using the proper dye,” she shares. “You will need Rit DyeMore for Synthetics (as opposed to Rit’s All-Purpose Dye). DyeMore is formulated for synthetic fabrics like polyester, acrylic, acetate, and even 3D printed items and some plastics like these clear plastic beads.”

“Due to the complexity of dyeing synthetics and plastics, you must use the stovetop method to maintain an almost boiling temperature while dyeing, around 200F or greater. But remember, some plastics and acrylics are sensitive to heat so make sure to test it out first if you’re unsure how your material will react to heat. We also recommend having a dedicated dye pot that is not used for cooking — we’ve had good luck sourcing all of our dye pots at the local thrift stores.”

The color options are endless, as evidenced by Darden’s creative trio of earth tones. Mixing Rit’s 15 DyeMore shades can create more than 1,000 color formulas, and she noted in the comments section of her post that she let the beads “let them soak for an extra long time,” though she didn’t specify exactly how long she let them soak for.

Darden’s clip racked up more than 1.3 million views within a day of posting, with commenters loving her nostalgia-fueled DIY decor. One person wrote: “reminds me of my beaded door curtain from the 90s.🥰” while another joked: “I feel like I’m in the early 2000s.”

All you need is an inflatable chair, a lava lamp, and your five-disc stereo system, and you can pretend you’re back in simpler times.