Name: Thor

Message: Hello,

You have a very informative site.  Thank you for the lovely time! 

I am curious whether you have heard or know of the use of the inflorescence from Clitoria ternatea having been used as a dye. I could only find use as a colorant for food (rice) in S. E. Asia.

It has an intensely blue color that seems to be quite stable towards light, and does not turn brown or gray in the short and very limited tests I've done.  I simply mashed the flowers onto a sheet of white paper and observed it over the course of several weeks (indoors). 
The anthocyanin principally responsible for the color is ternitin. I plan on doing several extractions wit different solvents an varied pH when enough material is acquired.

No, I'm afraid I have not heard a thing about successfully using any blue flower as a textile dye. Good blue natural dyes are very rare. 

It's not enough for a substance to have a lovely color, in order to be a textile dye. It must also have some affinity for the fiber, so that it sticks to the fiber even after washing. For example, beets are a lovely intense red color, but if you try to dye fabric with it, the best color you are likely to get is a pale beige. The beautiful red color just washes out. It makes a good food additive, however, since foods that have color added do not have to withstand washing.

Anthocyanins are also found in foodstuffs such as blueberries and grapes, which make notably poor dyes. If you try to dye textiles with most anthocyanins, you end up with drab grays or browns. Ternitin is supposed to be more stable than other anthocyanins, so its results might be less disappointing, but I would not expect it to be highly suitable for use as a textile dye.

In fact, the only good true blue natural dye I know, indigo, is not obtained from flowers at all. Indigo is the best natural blue textile dye; it can be obtained from some fifty different plants, around the world, and is now mostly produced through synthesis from petroleum products. This dye chemical is so superior to other natural blue dyes that it has been discovered repeatedly by different cultures around the world, using different source plants (plants which probably produce the indigo molecule as a natural fungicide). Indigo is applied differently from other natural dyes; most natural dyes are acid dyes or mordant dyes, while indigo is a vat dye, which means that it must be chemically reduced and then applied in an oxygen-free dyebath.

If you want to try using your butterfly pea flowers as a textile dye, I recommend that you use wool yarn or fabric. Any acid dye will work better on a protein fiber, such as silk or wool, than it will on a cellulose fiber such as cotton. Most natural dyes work best when used in large quantities; in general you might expect to need three pounds or so of the blue part only of the flowers, for every pound of wool. Mordant the fiber before dyeing it. Different mordants can alter the color in different ways, and are required for adequate washfastness of most natural dyes other than indigo; the safest mordant to use is alum, though it is not non-toxic. A typical dye recipe requires extensive simmering of the dyestuff in water, which is then strained and simmered at length with the premordanted fiber. However, heat destroys the purple anthocyanins in grapes, and is likely to cause your lovely blue anthocyanin to degrade, so it would be best to use temperatures well below boiling. Adjusting the pH with vinegar or another acid, or with a base such as sodium bicarbonate, may dramatically affect the color produced.

I would be interested in learning about the results of any further color experiments you do.


(Please help support this web site. Thank you.)