5 Food Based Clothing Dyes & How To Use Them

These food based clothing dyes can be found in your kitchen – and can do wonders to revive old clothes!

By Chiara Spagnoli Gabardi

Fluorescent pinks and oranges. Deep blacks. Rich reds. Canary yellows. These all may look wonderful on textiles, and induce consumers to buy fashions that sport them. But more and more people are realising that the chemicals used to create these dyes are seriously hazardous. They can expose the wearers to potential health effects including skin irritations, respiratory issues, and even seizures and cancer.

Water is affected by the pollution by these dyes during the manufacturing process. Chemicals including mercury, lead, chromium, copper, sodium chloride, toluene, and benzene consequently pollute our waterways, hurting not only all marine creatures, but the workers who are involved in touching those dyes, too.

So it comes as no surprise that increasing numbers of clothing brands – especially those that categorise themselves as ‘sustainable’ – are shying away from harmful chemical dyes. The results can be absolutely incredible. One textile worker whose designs we deeply admire here at Eluxe is Cara Maria Piazza. The New York based artist (whose work you can see below) puts a variety of flowers – mainly upcycled from bridal party and wedding waste – to beautiful use.

DIY Dyes

And it’s not actually all that difficult to dye clothes yourself with food based clothing dyes.

There are many different flower-and-food based clothing dyes to choose from, including various fruits, barks, berries and leaves. And the results on natural fibres like cotton, linen or wool are truly spectacular.

In fact, there lots of things that you already have around the house that can be used to make natural dyes, which can be put to good use for re-dyeing faded clothing or giving new life to plain fabrics. People have used natural materials to dye fabrics for centuries, and indigo, saffron, and madder are still used today. Best of all, the process of natural dyeing is fun too!

If you also want to try to dye your clothes at home, using natural elements, you can start by using the left-overs from your meals. Here are some crops that will cover the basic palette that you need, and links on how to dye your clothes to perfection. Just remember:

fibres will need to be natural
you may stain your pots, so be careful!
you’ll need to buy at least 1k of salt

clothing will need to be white to get the exact colours from the fruits; if they are coloured already, the outcome will be a blend of the original colour with the dye (check a colour wheel to see how combinations of colours are likely to come out)
if you are new to this, maybe try making a kind of ‘tie dye’ pattern like that below before trying to get a uniform colour all over the garment

Happy dyeing!

5 Food Based Clothing Dyes & How To Use Them

cara maria piazza

Blackberry: Grey

Autumn blackberries are used to obtain a full grey shade, and not a purple one as some mistakenly believe. If you put some of these berries in water, the colour becomes more intense, and some additional iron can help as a mordant.