Advantages of Natural Dyes

1) High diversity of rich and complex natural dye colours 2) Different colours go well together and rarely clash 3) Beauty of the results when using natural dyes 4) Excitement of unexpected results 5) Satisfaction of growing your own dye plants 6) Self-sufficiency if growing your own plants for plant dyes 7) Not dependent on nonrenewable materials 8) Allow for endless experimentation 9) Allow the replication of ancient techniques 10) Mature with age when exposed to sunlight and normal use, developing a patina as the colours mellow. 11) Aromatic smell when simmering the plant 12) Renewable Hence never Run Out. 13) Easily accessible across India in the dense forest. 14) Tress like Ø Magnifera Indica Ø Butea Monosperma Ø Antigonam Leptopus (pakdu) Ø Terminalia Bellerica Ø Semicarpus Anacardium (Bilva) Are perennial and available easily near by the villages in all the sessions. 15) Some synthetic dyes are carcinogenic so it is best to leave dying to professionals who can do it safely. The little packets of colored dyes you can buy are quite safe provided they are used as directed 16) Natural dyes produce an extraordinary diversity of rich and complex colours that complement each other. 17) Natural dyes from plants may also have dozens of compounds and their proportions vary with soil type and the weather. If you look at a yarn dyed with madder under the microscope, you will see a subtle variation of colour. A yarn dyed with the synthetic equivalent of madder (alizarin and purpurin) does not have this wealth of colour variation and looks much more uniform. 18) That natural dyes are vastly superior to synthetic dyes. They age well and develop a patina and an abrash as the older textiles are exposed to sunlight and normal use. The patina is a mellowing of the colours into an eye-pleasing sheen and the abrash is the slightly uneven hues that emerge as different dye lots, even of the same colour, fade at different rates as they age. 19) All of these factors combine in making natural dyes the ideal choice for use as organic fabric dyes. 20) ‘No synthetic dye has the lustre, that under-glow of rich colour, that delicious aromatic smell, that soft light and shadow that gives so much pleasure to the eye. 21) These colours are alive.