Name: christephanie

Message: Hi, am a university student @ the University of Mauritius (Bsc Textile and fashion Design) and have to submit a project by 20th Feb on Natural dyes. I have chosen to dye a cotton fabric using Mud (the three type of soil are available here) dyeing as an experiment with the aim of putting forward its ecological advantages and quality though not as good as synthetic dye. The problem is that I dont know how to proceed at all and would gladly welcome any hints for a successful operation.

I'd suggest you get your fabric today, some 100% natural fiber that is not treated with any sort of stain-resistant or permanent-press finish, wash it well in hot water with detergent and soda ash to remove any sizing or grease spots, then bury each of three pieces in a quantity of each of your three muds. If you do this now, you might be able to see some differences when you dig them out and rinse them out in cold water, after a week or so. Time might be an important element here, which is why I'm suggesting you start this little experiment immediately (and why I'm not mulling over your message for at least a week before answering).

Chemical auxiliaries such as vinegar or soda ash are unlikely to help, but you could always test this as part of your project if you wish. Pre-mordanting by boiling your cotton in alum for half an hour, then tannin for half an hour, then alum again, might be quite helpful. I can't tell you for sure, because I've never tried mud dyeing myself. Tannic acid itself, if gotten into the fabric in high enough concentrations, can complex with the iron in the mud to create an unexpectedly black color. This is the basis for African mud cloth dyeing, which is a long and laborious process. Tannic acid can be found in many plants, such as the galls of oak trees, the barks of some trees, pomegranate rinds, and black tea, and can be extracted into water by chopping the material finely then boiling for some time. It can also be purchased from natural dyes suppliers and from shops that supply wine brewers. If you don't know how much to use, and don't know the percent tannic acid content of whatever you use as a source for it, you will just have to do some trial and error to try to decide how much tannic acid is a good amount. (I would love to find out what you decide afterwards.)

As far as less practical suggestions are concerned, using a clear colorless fabric paint as a binder for the mud pigment would result in much superior results as compared to simple mud dyeing, more intense in color and far longer-lasting, but the results would certainly not be 'natural', since the clear fabric paint binders contain acrylics. There is an old tradition in Japan of using soy milk as an all-natural binder for pigments on fabric. You can still do this today, though I must warn you that you would have to make your own fresh soy milk; the soy milk we can buy in the grocery store is evidently no good at all for use as a binder in fabric painting. The company Table Rock Llamas, which has an online store, takes a lot of the guesswork and trial and error out of this process by selling a soy milk kit plus all manner of earth oxides from around the world, in many different colors, for use in painting the fabric that's been treated with the soy milk binder. You can use locally available soybeans to make your own soymilk, if you choose to go this route, and use your local mud for color. This technique should produce superior results, albeit at the cost of far, far more hours of work than would be required to use modern synthetic materials.

Mud dyeing, as a rule, produces pale brown or reddish brown shades that fade in the laundry, ultimately leaving you with only a pale iron buff color. It's not something you could really call a successful dye. A successful dye should not wash out in the laundry. You cannot make a good argument that mud dyeing has any 'quality' advantages over more effective dyes. It's more of a fun idea than a practical way to dye anything. However, the success of African mud cloth suggests that using large amounts of tannic acid might be a way to make mud dyeing much more practical.

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