The Beauty and Benefits of Natural Dyes

Image: Living Blue

Natural dyes are making a comeback. As the health and environmental impacts of synthetic dyes become more widely reported, many farmers, designers and textile producers are returning to age-old methods of colouring cloth. Natural dyes are safer, gentler on the planet and can enhance our well-being through reconnecting us with the natural world.

Throughout history, people have dyed their textiles using natural, locally available materials. The majority of natural dyes come from plant sources - roots, berries, bark, leaves, and wood - and more rarely from insect and mineral sources. The introduction of synthetic dyes in the mid-19th century meant that natural dyes, for the most part, became a lost technology. Synthetic dyes are cheaper, more suited to mass production and can be used to dye synthetic fibres. They do, however, come at a great cost to the environment and present several health and safety concerns.

Due to their lower environmental footprint, non-toxicity and unique aesthetic qualities, natural dyeing techniques, kept alive by home dyers and preserved by traditional cultures around the world, are experiencing a resurgence. Let’s take a look at their benefits.

1. Non-Toxic

Natural dyes are biodegradable, non-toxic and non-allergenic. Provided they are processed in a way that avoids the use of harmful chemicals during the dyeing and finishing process, they have a much lower environmental impact than synthetic dyes.

The textile dyeing industry is one of the most chemically intensive on the planet and a major polluter of water. The majority of textile dyeing takes place in countries with minimal regulations and few safeguards over the amount of exposure workers have to toxic chemicals and how the waste from the dyeing process is disposed of. It’s estimated that 17-20% of industrial water pollution comes from textile dyeing with toxic runoff entering rivers before making its way to oceans and causing harm to marine life. Documentaries like RiverBlue have raised public awareness of the issues, showing us how, as rivers become polluted, the health of the people who use them is negatively affected and wildlife is endangered.  

Synthetic dyes can also pose a direct risk to consumers. Certain dyes remain on the fabric, evaporating into the air we breathe or being absorbed by the skin. Contact with some chemicals can trigger allergic actions, cause skin irritation and rashes and there are also concerns regarding the carcinogenic properties of some dyes, although the most toxic ones, such as azo dyes, are now banned in the UK.

2. Therapeutic

As well as being kinder and safer for our skin and for our homes, natural dyes can help to create a relaxing and restorative environment. Colours created by natural dyes have an aesthetic that synthetic dyes simply can’t compete with. They are rich and complex. Many natural dye plants contain more than one type of dye compound, the proportions of which vary with the soil type and climate where they are grown. This provides a wealth of colour variation compared to synthetic dyes that are more uniform and flat. This subtle complexity is soothing to look at and has a calming effect on the viewer.

Natural colours are alive. They speak to their origins in the natural world with their depth and variation, the soft play of light and shadow and the organic patina that develops with older textiles over time as they are used and exposed to sunlight. Colours shift from dye bath to dye bath and from season to season with inconsistency and variations in colour forming part of their intrinsic beauty. Their subtle, aromatic scent helps to create a multi-sensory experience, an important facet of the biophilic design approach that aims to bring nature indoors and enhance our well-being through reconnection to the natural world. Humans have evolved in an environment saturated with natural colours, so we feel relaxed and at home with them.

3. Regenerative

Natural dyes have the potential to restore the environment and support sustainable rural industries. Dye crops can be grown regeneratively with by-products, such as organic compost and biofuel, increasing the range of useful outputs and providing environmentally sound alternatives to other products. Using natural dyes from trees such as myrobalan Terminalia cheruba, can help to preserve the biodiversity of native trees and increase the amount of permanent forest cover.

One of our favourite natural dyes is indigo, a blue dye that is extracted from the leaves of the Indigofera tinctoria plant. Indigofera’s sustainability credentials are second to none. It’s a very hardy crop and grows easily in various types of soil without the help of chemical inputs. As a legume, it’s a natural fertiliser, fixing nitrogen into the soil and is often used in crop rotations to revitalise soil fertility. In India and Bangladesh, where the indigo in our collections is produced, the stems of the plant are used as a biofuel after the dye material has been harvested.

The whole process of growing, processing and using natural dyes to colour textiles can support sustainable rural industries. Nijera Cottage and Village Industries in Bangladesh, which also goes by the name ‘Living Blue’, is one of the textile producers we work with. They are a social enterprise consisting of natural indigo farmers, dyers and artisans trained in the art of shibori (a resist-dyeing technique). Everything from the cultivation of the plants to the stitching of the final product is carried out locally by members of Nijera. By keeping all stages of production in the local area, a diversity of jobs are created, which supports a functioning local economy.

The benefits of re-kindling natural dyeing processes are clear. Using natural dyes provides an important alternative to the highly polluting synthetic dyeing industry responsible for the degradation of waterways and negative health impacts. Natural dyes reacquaint us with a high-quality sensory experience, reconnecting us with the land, its seasons and its processes. And with their potential for rebuilding soil health and supporting local communities, natural dyes are an exciting part of the regenerative textile movement.

Words: Jenny Bell