Making your own iron mordant, and assessing toxicity of dyes

Name: Fariz

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Wild Color, Revised and Updated Edition: The Complete Guide to Making and Using Natural Dyes

by Jenny Dean

Includes recipes for making your own iron and copper mordants. Excellent resource for natural dyeing of wool.

The Art and Craft
of Natural Dyeing:
Traditional Recipes for Modern Use

by J.N. Liles

An excellent source of many well-tested, difficult-to-find recipes

Country or region: Malaysia

[continuing yesterday's discussion]

Yes, it is for a fashion competition. We have to create an outfit that is sustainable and eco-friendly by using recyclable materials. I had decided to use old clothes but the colours do not match with my concept. I want to use black and the only way is by dying the clothes. My friends suggest to use natural dye like coffee or charcoal and as what you wrote, it won't work well especially without mordant. It is not easily to find mordant especially in my country. The only way that may work is by using Dylon Dye (the only dye I can get).

As you know, the judges may ask me "why I prefer to use Dylon Dye instead of natural dye", "how do you know it safe", "is there any ingredient that would harm us as human and also to environment" and many other question they can ask me.

It is possible to make your own iron mordant, though I've never tried it myself. Jenny Dean, in her book "Wild Color," explains (on page 42 of her older 1999 edition) as follows:

"To make iron liquor, place rusty nails or pieces of scrap iron into a glass jar with a lid. Fill up the jar with two parts water to one part clear vinegar, or 5% dilute acetic acid. Leave the iron to steep in the solution for one or two weeks, or until the solution turns a rusty orange color.

"To use iron liquor as a mordant, strain the solution into a stainless steel pot, adding water as necessary. Then add the well-wetted fibers and simmer gently for 10 minutes, or until the fibers appear pale orange in color. Let the fibers cool in the solution, then rinse them thoroughly."

Iron mordant is safe to work with only as long as no one drinks it; since it can be fatal when swallowed, it must be kept out of the reach of children and pets. If you use too much iron as a mordant, it can be damaging to the fibers, so you will want to experiment to see how much works best for you.

Is there anyplace local where you can get real natural dyes, such as logwood, indigo, or cutch? The outer hulls of walnuts or pecans make a good dark brown dye, which can be darkened with iron. There are undoubtedly native plants in every region, such as pomegranate and oak trees, which are good sources of tannins; tannins mordanted with iron are the oldest known true black dyes. Other foodstuffs are never going to be nearly as satisfactory at dyeing anything black. There has been international trade in good dyestuffs for hundreds or even thousands of years, because the quality of dye materials makes such a big difference.

Black is the hardest of all colors to obtain, because it is by far the darkest. If you can't get proper dye, whether synthetic or natural, I would advise you to aim for an easier color to reach, or better yet, get the best color you can and then tell the judges you meant to do that. If you use coffee as a dye, you should be satisfied with getting a brown color, as black is unlikely to be happen.

Note that almost all dyes, including most synthetic dyes and all natural dyes, work best on natural fibers. Avoid synthetic-fiber clothing such as polyester, acetate, or acrylic, which won't dye well. In addition, most natural dyes work much better on wool or silk than they do on cotton, rayon, and other plant fibers. Choosing your garments to dye carefully can make a big difference in the success of your project.

If you end up using Dylon dyes, you can be prepared for questions about safety. There are different lines of Dylon dye, so, to find the correct safety information, it's important to specify which line you are using; for example Dylon Cold Dye is different from Dylon Permanent Dye, and Dylon Multi Purpose Dye something quite different again, but Dylon Hand Dye and Dylon Machine Dye are similar to Dylon Permanent Dye. Which Dylon dye can you find in stores? The fine print on the package will clarify which dye you have.

For example, you can find MSDS (Materials Safety Data Sheets) for Dylon Permanent Dyes at Blick Art Materials [click on the little page icon next to each color]. The "hazardous ingredients" listed include the dye itself because it can cause a respiratory allergy if you are careless enough to breathe some of the dye powder, plus the high-pH ingredients used to fix the dye, either trisodium phosphate or sodium carbonate, the latter being a common household chemical found in washing soda and in laundry detergent powder.

MSDS pages are typically rather alarming; almost every chemical can cause eye and skin irritation upon exposure, and should be used only with waterproof gloves and safety glasses. Look for warnings about carcinogenicity or reproductive harm: neither of these should be found in any Dylon product, as Dylon has avoided seriously toxic dyes when making up their formulas. Although some synthetic dyes are quite dangerous, other synthetic dyes are not dangerous at all, especially when used with normal care. For comparison's sake, you can look at the MSDS for truly hazardous dyes such as Direct Black 38 or for Sudan IV [PDF].

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Posted: Sunday - July 22, 2012 at 11:32 AM

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Making your own iron mordant, and assessing toxicity of dyes

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