The most "natural" way to dye a T-shirt

How can you make a T-shirt really “juicy”

How can you make a T-shirt re­al­ly “juicy”? The most “nat­u­ral” way to col­or a t-shirt!

Safe­ty pre­cau­tions

  • Con­duct the ex­per­i­ment only un­der adult su­per­vi­sion.
  • Cau­tion, dyes may leave marks on skin and sur­faces.

Reagents and equip­ment

  • 200g blue­ber­ries;
  • 200g spinach;
  • 15g turmer­ic;
  • white cot­ton T-shirt;
  • fork;
  • spoon;
  • knife;
  • rub­ber bands;
  • acetic acid so­lu­tion (2 ta­ble­spoons vine­gar per 1L wa­ter );
  • glass con­tain­ers.

Step-by-step in­struc­tions

Blue­ber­ry dye: add 200mL boil­ing wa­ter to a blue­ber­ry puree and leave for 10 min­utes.

Spinach dye: put 200g chopped spinach in a glass bowl, add 200 mL boil­ing wa­ter, and leave for 10 min­utes. Fil­ter through a fun­nel with gauze.

Turmer­ic dye: pour 200mL boil­ing wa­ter over 15g ground turmer­ic, leave for 10 min­utes.

Roll a white cot­ton T-shirt into a ball us­ing a fork and bind it with rub­ber bands. Put it in a deep con­tain­er. Us­ing a spoon, ap­ply the nat­u­ral dyes to the T-shirt. Af­ter the top is stained, col­or the oth­er side and let sit for 12 hours. Wash the T-shirt in an acetic acid so­lu­tion (2 ta­ble­spoons of ta­ble vine­gar to 1 liter of wa­ter) to “fix” the fab­ric’s col­or. Wash the T-shirt with a neu­tral de­ter­gent be­fore wear­ing.

Process de­scrip­tion

Some plants con­tain nat­u­ral dyes. An­tho­cyanins are plant pig­ments that can be found most­ly in blue, vi­o­let, and red veg­eta­bles, fruits, and flow­ers. An­tho­cyanins are wa­ter-sol­u­ble and can eas­i­ly be used to make nat­u­ral dyes. They are wide­ly used in the food and cos­met­ic in­dus­try as ad­di­tive E163, and are of­ten added to wine, sauces, baked goods, and much more as a col­or en­hancer.

Chloro­phyll is a pig­ment that makes leaves and plant stems green. It is poor­ly sol­u­ble in wa­ter and even­tu­al­ly de­te­ri­o­rates, ac­quir­ing a yel­low tint. It is also known as food ad­di­tive E140, used in jel­ly, dairy prod­ucts, and more.

Cur­cum­in is a sub­stance found in the rhi­zomes of the turmer­ic plant Cúr­cuma lón­ga. It has a bright yel­low col­or and is used as a nat­u­ral dye. It is also food ad­di­tive E100, which is used in the man­u­fac­ture of cheeses, baked goods, and spices.

Acetic acid is of­ten used as a fix­a­tive when dye­ing var­i­ous fab­rics. It helps dye mol­e­cules stick to fibers more firm­ly.

Try it