Previously we were dying with alum & calcium carbonate, until we received our natural tannin and natural soda ash in the mail. The natural mordant was imported from Canada by a company called Maiwa. The mordant we purchased is a natural tannin (tannic acid) sourced from oak galls called Gallic Tannin Extract.
The natural soda ash came from a company called Pure Organic Ingredients, and is sourced from a small mine in Green River Wyoming.
The following video shows each step of our process for dying completely naturally with cutch, to achieve a beautiful earthy brown color on organic fabric. Click pic below to play:
Here are the shirts after the process you just watched in the video, hanging up outside still drying. It is important to remember to NEVER dry your herbal dyed clothing in direct sunlight, and also NEVER put them in the washing machine. Cloths of this caliber MUST be hand washed and dried properly. Since there are no short cuts in the materials or process, there also cannot be any short cuts in the general care of these garments.
Below are the results of both processes with the same dye stuff. The darker shade came from using the alum and calcium carbonate previously, and the lighter shade from the tannin today.
I will update with more plant dying articles/videos as we dye more shirts and garments, until then feel free to check out my other recent plant dying articles:
Click here for my in depth description about dying on organic fabric with plants the natural way.
Do not forget that my debut conscious Hip-Hop album is completely free for download on Bandcamp and Soundcloud (click the links to go to my music on those platforms), or CLICK HERE for download instructions.
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