Pomegranate Natural Dye DIY
Pomegranates make a fantastic natural dye! They’re easy to find in supermarkets during the fall and winter and bring some nice color to my dye studio during a time when the plants I grow and use for dyes are not in season. The fabrics shown above are mordanted with alum, though read on and see photos below that show unmordanted fabric with nearly identical results.
The Process
Eat a pomegranate and save the rind. You may be tempted to use the seeds as dye because of the brilliant scarlet color that stains cutting boards and finger but don’t do it! The red coloring in flowers and berries is caused by compounds called anthocyanins and they do not make permanent fabric dye. They may stain fabric for a while but will quickly fade and lighten in the wash. Eat the seeds and same the rind. Discard the fleshy interior bits and keep the outside peel.
2. You can dye with the peel right away or dry them for later. I let mine air dry until they are leathery and then keep them in a jar until I’m ready to dye with them.
3. I like to cut the peel into small pieces. Smaller pieces mean more surface area in contact with the water and the color comes out of them more quickly than if you put in just a few large pieces.
4. Add pomegranate peel to a pot of water and heat.
How much pomegranate should you use?
A good rule when you are using natural dyes is to use 100% of the weight of the fiber (WOF) you’re using. If you have 2 ounces of fabric, use 2 ounces of dye matter. If you are using fresh, not dried, peel you will want to use more since a lot of the weight of fresh peel is water. There’s no true right or wrong amount to use. If your fiber turns out lighter than you’d like you can always add more peel and dye it again. I knew I wanted dark colors and had a lot of peel to use so I dyed the fabric in this post using 200% WOF.
I heated my pot to a boil, then turned it down and let it simmer for approximately 1 hour. You can strain the peel out and dye right away, or leave the peel in the water for several more hours, or even overnight, to allow more color to come out.
The photos below show the clear yellow-brown color of the liquid after 1 hour of simmering and then a murky, darker color after letting it cool overnight.
Pomegranate dye after simmering for 1 hour
Pomegranate dye after simmering 1 hour, then letting it sit overnight
4. After your pomegranate peel has simmered and soaked as long as you’d like, strain the peels out and add your fiber.
It’s best to pre-soak your fiber before adding it to the dye. If the fiber is fully wet it will absorb the dye more evenly than if added dry.
6. Bring the dye + fabric to a simmer and heat for approximately an hour. I then let it cool enough that I can remove the fabric without burning myself.
Hang your fiber to dry.
The Results
I dyed several types of fabric (silk, raw silk, cotton, and wool) as well as wool yarn. This photo shows the subtle differences between fiber with NO mordant (on the left) and mordanted fiber (shown on the right.)
Fibers are shown in this same order in all subsequent photos.
The mordanted fiber has a slightly brighter gold coloring, most noticeable in the wool fabric and yarn. The silk and cotton fabric with mordant are very slightly darker than the unmordanted samples.
Based on these results it seems that mordanting may not be worth the effort when dyeing with pomegranate peel. Pomegranate is high in tannins and those compounds don’t need mordanting to be colorfast. I would like to do some more dyeing and repeated washings of pomegranate dyed fabric before I decide for sure if I’ll mordant in the future or not.
I have seen others get more drastically different results with mordanted and unmordanted fiber so I’m curious what you find if you dye with pomegranate!
Modifying Pomegranate Dye with Iron
mordanted fiber: pomegranate dye on the left, pomegranate dye + iron on the right
The tannins in pomegranate peel react beautifully with iron to create gorgeous brown, olive, and gray colors.
This image shows mordanted fabric dyed in pomegranate next to the same fabrics dyed with pomegranate and iron. I used 1.5% WOF of iron. It truly only takes a tiny amount to shift the color! If you don’t have a scale that can weigh such small amounts start with a tiny pinch of iron powder, add hot water, then submerge pomegrante dyed fiber and watch the colors transform.
I left this fiber in the iron solution for only a couple minutes. Leaving it to soak longer can result in darker colors.
The photo below shows all samples I dyed. Each column shows unmordanted fiber on the left, mordanted fiber on the right. As with plain pomegranate, the pomegranate + iron samples show only subtle differences when comparing mordanted fiber or not.
Let me know if you dye with pomegranate! I’d love to know how your fabric turns out. You can always send me an email, or tag me in a photo on Instagram so I can see your results.
