Natural Dyes

The benefits of natural dyes

Natural dyeing is a labour intensive traditional art that uses locally available resources and expertise. Friendly to the environment as well as rich in variety, natural dyeing of silk appeals to people concerned with not just environment, but also aesthetics and fashion.

Natural dyeing experts find beautiful colour springs from unlikely places. By using traditional recipes with new variations, artisans transform roots, leaves, bark, berries and seeds into natural dyes. Examples of these ingredients include indigo, mulberry fruit, annatto seed, tamarind, angola pea plant, hem bark, lac resin and coffee beans. Because of the organic nature of these ingredients, each piece is unique.

mulberry fruitmulberry fruit

Mulberry fruit and leaves

indigo leavesindigo leaves

Indigo leaves

tamarind pulptamarind pulp

Tamarind pulp

annatto seedsannatto seeds

Annatto seeds

Crushing lac resinCrushing lac resin

Crushing lac resin

Lac resinLac resin

Colour options range from autumn red to cranberry to fade pink, blue spruce to pistachio,
harvest gold to chalk yellow, hot chocolate to malt.

  • PINK: lac resin, mulberries
  • RED: lac resin, mulberries, annato seed
  • YELLOW: hem vine, leen tree  bark, coffee, indigo,  annato seed
  • BROWN: ngiao branch, teak  leaf, du branch,  kabao fruit, mulberries
  • GREEN: indigo, hem vine,  mulberries
  • BLUE: indigo, mulberries
  • PURPLE: mulberries, teak leaf
  • GREY: mulberries
  • BLACK: indigo