We get mordant questions all the time at Botanical Colors so why not create Mordant Monday??? Got mordanting questions? Email questions@botanicalcolors.com 2 light indigo dips on mordanted silk before immersing in exhaust dye baths to make pastels YOU ASKED: My question involves the processes of indigo dyeing when combined with other plant dyes that have been mordanted with aluminum acetate. My understanding is that citric acid discharges the mordant and also neutralizes the alkalinity of ind...| Botanical Colors
Botanical Colors provides natural dyes to natural dyers and fashion brands that are sustainable, environmentally friendly and support farming communities.| Botanical Colors
A little backstory from Kathy: I’ve known Jean and William for many years through their trunk shows held in Seattle, where they’d speak about their cultural and natural dye projects in Bali as well as bring an array of incredible traditional textiles to view and purchase. From the beginning, I was impressed how they always put the weavers and communities front and center to their work. The quality and breadth of the textiles is exceptional, and the Seattle Art Museum acquired a dozen piec...| Botanical Colors
I just finished teaching A Nerd’s Guide to Mordants online this past weekend where we discussed the idea of adding minerals to the dye bath to develop deeper color. This is a technique that we’ve used in the PNW as our water is not very highly mineralized. Now many of the water sources in the United States are from groundwater sources that contain minerals like calcium and magnesium, and sometimes iron, so it’s easy to get rich reds from madder extract with little effort. However in Sea...| Botanical Colors
Soda Ash, also known as sodium carbonate, is a workhorse in the dye studio. Soda Ash is a mild base that increases the pH of an indigo vat.| Botanical Colors
Cellulose scour is designed for use with cellulose fibers. It works on cellulose and bast fibers in combination with soda ash and heat.| Botanical Colors
In a recent Live FEEDBACK FRIDAY featuring Mordanting & Scouring 101, Botanical Colors Founder Kathy Hattori took on all your questions.| Botanical Colors
Organic Indigo from Living Blue is a special indigo produced in rural Bangladesh by the Living Blue cooperative, specializing in farming and crafts.| Botanical Colors
Our organic indigo is 45-48% indigotin which is 2 to 3 times stronger than other indigo on the market. So you will produce deep colors with fewer dips.| Botanical Colors
Madder extract dyes to its deepest colors with an alum mordant and calcium carbonate. Add a mild acid to your dyebath to create a soft orange shade.| Botanical Colors
This Mordant Monday, I want to share a little bit about my pokeberry dye adventure this past week. Those of you who know me know that I was trained to mordant nearly everything (exception: indigo). Not mordanting something that needs a mordant usually elicits a shocked, silent, but oh-so-judgey raised eyebrow, so this post is a stretch for me. The interesting thing about pokeberries is that it’s possible to get a brilliant color by using wool yarn and white vinegar. No alum mordant is used ...| Botanical Colors
On this Sunday Visit, we’re honored to sit down with Harvest & Mill, pioneers in regeneratively grown, U.S.-made organic clothing whose work invites us to slow down and recalibrate our relationship with the land and our wardrobes. As ever, we approach this dialogue in reverence for our continued collaboration—one that roots deeply in shared values of local making, true sustainability, and a belief that changing fashion means changing systems, stitch by stitch. Their story is one of vision...| Botanical Colors
This week on the Sunday Visit, we are honored to welcome artist Nnenna Okore, whose work bridges ecology, materiality, and community practice through powerful sculptural installations and tactile explorations of the natural world. Working with biodegradable substances and fibers, Nnenna brings attention to cycles of transformation, decay, and renewal, echoing both the fragility and resilience of our ecosystems. Her artistic journey, deeply rooted in cultural traditions and...| Botanical Colors
TANNIN A TIMELESS MORDANT Tannins are a bitter and astringent compound found so abundantly in many plants. In food, they serve as the slight pucker in black coffee and tea, and the “oaky” flavor in aged wines. Tannins are used in medicine and for leather tanning. For us, they are the natural dyer’s not-so-secret-weapon to beautiful color. For the natural colorist, tannins provide a rich base for unusual and eye-catching combinations, and they’re particularly effective on plant fib...| Botanical Colors
We get mordant questions all the time at Botanical Colors so why not create Mordant Monday??? Got mordanting questions? Email questions@botanicalcolors.com YOU ASKED: I am working with earth pigments specifically clay. I am trying to wrap my head around the use of soy as a binder/mordant. Is a coating of soy necessary as an initial application? Then using pigment. Mixed with soy as design than a coating of soy over the whole dried material? Or what?? KATHY ANSWERED: Soy is used as a binder, a...| Botanical Colors
Kakishibu samples clockwise from top: paste resist by Kentaro Kojima, silk, cotton sashiko thread, cotton with iron, soda ash and kakishibu alone. Natural dyes are fascinating because we can see the history of human curiosity and imagination as it interacts with the natural world. Like, who looked at a hard, green, horribly astringent, inedible persimmon fruit and thought “You know, there’s probably an amazing, insect-repelling, anti-microbial, water-resistant, beautiful color in there if...| Botanical Colors
We get mordant questions all the time at Botanical Colors so why not create Mordant Monday??? Got mordanting questions? Email questions@botanicalcolors.com YOU ASKED: I’m wondering if its possible to reuse a tannin bath, perhaps by using half as much tannin powder the second time as one can do when re using a mordant bath? Recently I have made a tannin bath for linen and have lots left over, it would be great not to throw it out! Secondly, I usually rinse the fabric after mordanting and bef...| Botanical Colors
The fructose indigo vat is one of the easiest indigo vats to set up and gives good color. I've found that it benefits from a few days aging| Botanical Colors
We get mordant questions all the time at Botanical Colors so why not create Mordant Monday??? Got mordanting questions? Email questions@botanicalcolors.com YOU ASKED: Do you always dye indigo first before overdyeing with another color? Does it make any difference? KATHY ANSWERED: When I was starting out, I was advised to dye with indigo first, rinse, mordant my fabric, and then dye with a mordant color second in order to create any type of compound color when indigo is involved. We largely ag...| Botanical Colors
The 1-2-3 fructose indigo vat is one of our most popular vats for its ease of use and good, strong colors. Our kit comes pre-measured to make a vat.| Botanical Colors
A beautiful indigo paste from Oregon's Vibrant Valley Blue. This historical color comes from Japanese indigo, or Persicaria tinctoria.| Botanical Colors
