What are Natural Dye Extracts and Why Use Them for Dyeing?
Natural dye extracts are a popular alternative to raw plant materials. Fibrecrafts Natural Dye Extracts provide efficiency, consistency, and professional results in textile dyeing projects:
- Concentrated Purity: The refined powders are produced from natural dyestuffs, including roots, barks, leaves, flowers and cochineal insects. The material is processed in water to extract the colour compounds. The resulting dye solution is then filtered to remove plant material and other debris before being concentrated and dried to remove the moisture. The remaining fine powder is a concentrated natural dye extract.
- Dissolves Easily: Natural dye extracts are water-soluble and dissolve easily in warm water – there is no need to soak the dye extract, and there is no need to strain the dye solution before dyeing.
- Reliable & Repeatable Shades: They offer high shade consistency, and the powdered form makes it easy to measure precise quantities for repeatable colour results.
- High-Yield Efficiency: The dye extracts are so highly concentrated that a small amount goes a long way. A much lower percentage of Weight of Fibre (WOF) will achieve deep, rich colours compared to much larger amounts of traditional natural dyestuff.
How to Dye Materials Using Natural Dye Extracts
On average, 5g of natural dye extract can give a strong colour on 100g of fibre (5% WOF) and a lighter colour on 200g of fibre (2.5% WOF). Colour strength will vary with the particular extract, fibre, mordant and dyeing conditions.
- Make the powder into a paste with a small amount of warm water, then stir into a pan of water.
- Introduce your damp, pre-mordanted fibre and bring the dye solution to a simmer.
- Maintain the temperature for 45–60 minutes, stirring gently at intervals.
- Remove from the heat and allow to cool overnight before squeezing out the dye solution and rinsing in cold water until clear.