ALUM MORDANT (Potassium Aluminum Sulphate Dodecahydrate) ~ necessary for most plant dyes to ensure colour fastness.

Alum is considered the least harmful or safest when it come to mordants used in plant dyeing. What many don't know is that Alum occurs naturally in nature and some plants, like horsetail, contain Alum.

For mordanting Cellulose fibres, please choose one of the following recipes on our blog:

How to mordant linen and cotton fabrics successfully – AppleOak FibreWorks

How to mordant Linen and Cotton successfully without Tannins – AppleOak FibreWorks

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Basic recipe for wool:

Weigh your DRY textile material.

Soak your dry material.

10%-20% Alum (D.W.F. = Dry Weight of Fibre)

Cold mordanting:

Dissolve Alum in hot water, add to mordanting pot. Add your pre soaked wool and let sit for 24-72h

Hot mordanting:

Add 5% of Cream of tartar to your mordanting bath, to slow down the Mordant uptake. Add wool and bring to 80C for 1h. Let cool.

Rinse and dye or dry for later use.

GUAR GUM ORGANIC ~ used for printing with natural dyes

Guar Gum is also called guaran and is extracted from organic guar beans. It is used in the print making by mixing the powder with small amount of water to create a paste and is used with mordant dyes and Indigo. Guar Gum thickens as it absorbs liquid. Use a handheld blender or mixer to make sure that the gum dissolves evenly. The amount of gum can be increased if necessary. 

Recipe Foreword:

Guar Gum acts as a mordant carrier when using mordant based dyes. The recipe below creates a rubber like substance, with which the pattern is drawn or printed on the fabric. After it is dried, the Gum has to be removed by using a Chalk and Wheat bran solution followed by a rinse. 

Only now can the fabric be added to the dye bath. once dyed, it should be thoroughly rinsed and boiled by using a bit of organic washing up liquid.

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Basic recipe to create Guar Gum Mordant carrier for mordant dyes on Cellulose fabric: Once mixed it will only keep for a couple of days and must be kept in the fridge.

Ingredients for 100g:

Alum 10g

Soda Ash 5g

Vinegar (5% acetic Acid) 84g

Guar Gum 1g

IRON MORDANT ~ Mordant, Colour Changer, increased light fastness

Iron (Ferrous Sulfate) is used alone as a mordant, influencing Colours and to increase light fastness when used in combination with other natural dyes.

Iron is best known for shifting yellows into greens, keep in mind that this is not given and doesn't work with every yellow plant dye, in which case it will be more of a brown. it is used to increase light fastness for weaker plant dyes, bu it will always sadden and/or darken the colours. 

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Basic recipe:

When adding Iron to your dye bath start of with 3% and use it at the end of your dye bath or as an after bath. Allow to oxidize for 10 min for full colour development.

*If you like your colours darker, increase the Iron amount by 1-2% at a time. 

**Leave for 10min than remove from dye bath - Iron will make wool brittle.

Sodium Acetate ~ Used to turn Ferrous Sulfate into Ferrous Acetate; used in the Mordanting Recipe for Cotton and Linen without Tannin (see below)

Sodium acetate, NaCH₃COO, also abbreviated NaOAc, is the sodium salt of acetic acid. We use Sodium Acetate to turn Iron into an easier digestible version of itself, Iron acetate. Similar to 'Iron Water' but you can control the amounts. Iron acetate is not as harsh on the fibres and can be easier digested by nature or your septic tank when turned into rust. Once made, it has no shelf life and needs to be used immediately. 

For mordanting Cellulose fibres, please choose one of the following recipes on our blog:

How to mordant linen and cotton fabrics successfully – AppleOak FibreWorks

How to mordant Linen and Cotton successfully without Tannins – AppleOak FibreWorks

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Basic recipe: 

1part Ferrous Sulfate

1part Sodium Acetate

Mix and dissolve in Water. I find that it makes the iron stronger and we only use 1% of Iron acetate on most recipes. Warm water will also intensify the reaction.