DIY: Make Natural Non Toxic Dye
This week I have been spending a good deal of time in the kitchen, cooking up natural dyes. I am actually surprised that after 7 years of art in college I had never learned to make paints, toxic or non toxic. But after reading Autumn’s post about how to make your own milk paint, I got to thinking even deeper into how to make pigments since the colored pigment can be as toxic as the binder. What I found out was a creative revelation that I can not stop cooking up! My personal criteria for creating pigment/dye is this:
- It cannot be toxic in any way, even if the substance is natural.
- It has to be in abundance and easily gathered in nature (don’t ever take so much that the plant can’t survive or make seeds.)
I totally hit the jack pot when I walked outside to find that my landlady next door has a plum tree with a gazillion plums that had already fallen to the ground and were being eaten by bugs, rotting, fermenting, gushy etc…
The natural organic dye experiment begins…
Supplies you’ll need to cook your brew:
- Water
- Salt or vinegar
- Cooking pot ( a spare that you don’t use for cooking food)
- Measure cup
- Strainer
- White, off white or light colored natural fabric (linen, organic cotton, wool and silk are best)
- Some sort of plant, flower, berry, root, bark, etc to dye with
