colorfast Archives - Botanical Colors

MORDANT MONDAY: Symplocos Mordant + Prepping Paper

We get mordant questions all the time at Botanical Colors so why not create Mordant Monday??? Got mordanting questions? Email [email protected] YOU ASKED: I have looked over the symplocos mordanting instructions that you have on the Botanical Colors website and I see that there is an “Oiling the Fabric” step for cellulose fabrics that we did not use in the workshop. I am wondering how important that step is in creating a fairly lightfast and colorfast final fabric? I really love some of the colors we got in class on cotton using symplocos mordant and sappanwood and would like to use … Read more

FEEDBACK FRIDAY: This Week in Natural Dye Questions

This week: How to keep madder “fast” and is alum toxic?

FEEDBACK FRIDAY: This Week in Natural Dye Questions

Each week, we are emailed with questions from our natural dye community asking simple and complex questions that we thought might be worth sharing. Here are a handful from this week answered by natural dyer in chief, Kathy Hattori, Founder of Botanical Colors: What’s the difference between colorfastness in natural dyes vs synthetic? Based on the fact that we have museums filled with tapestries and other textiles from hundreds of years ago, why is there such debate that natural dyes last? This is an interesting question with a complex answer. Color, light and washfastness commonly refers to how well a … Read more

Your Go-To Denim Jeans Love Indigo

This series on Denimhunters by Thomas Stege Bojer is really good and if you’ve ever wondered how your go-to denim jeans are made, this is place to go. Of course we love part three on indigo dyeing and all the complexities of natural vs. synthetic when it comes to scaling production. Bojer writes: “Indigo is the blue in blue jeans. The dyestuff has been popular around the world for several millennia. It’s been the colour of royals, which made it desirable for the proletariat. It’s one of the most colorfast natural dyes. And it remains beautiful as it fades to … Read more