Making Dye With Food
Materials: three pomegranates + 2 liters of water
- Procedures:
- Break the surface of the fruit by cutting or breaking them open.
- After slightly breaking part, put the fruit in a pot with water and bring to boil for 30 minutes. (I started at 8:48am)
- After boiling for 30 min, turn to simmer. (while simmering, the water evaporates therefor I add three more cups of water into the pot)
- Turn the stove off and let it sit to cool down. (Finished time: 10:33)
- After cooling, put it in a container to store it for lab experiment.
Dye Lab Experiment:
Hypothesis: If I add pomegranate juice to the wool, I will get peachy orange color.
This is my notes
- Procedure:
- Cleaning: take a pinch of wool and clean it with water and soap in a bowl and boil the pot yet do not bring to boiling. or washed it with cool water and soup, using hand to gently wash it.
- Materials will be used: Mordant, Dye, Alum, Iron, cream of tartan
Notes: teacher recommends add alum- about 15% wof (weight of fiber) and iron-20%wof.
- GO DYE!!!!! 🙂
Chart of Variations
Tests:
1) 14g hot washed wool +2.1g alum+.28g iron+3/4 cup of dye
experiment 1
2) 9g cold washed wool + 2.1g alum+.28g iron + 3/4 cup of dye
experiment 2
3) 10cm^2 dry muslin+ 2 alum+ 1/2 cup of dye + 3g cream of tartan
experiment 3
4) 10cm^2 dry muslin+ 2 alum+2g baking soda + 2g iron+ 1/2 cup of dye + 3g cream of tartan
Final step: dry them and wait for the results!
Results and Interpretations:
After the experiments, my work did not come out as I expected. The wool and the muslin was not so much saturated but more dusty colors. I know it is because of the items that I added, in which gives the original dye more variations. However, I like the earthy tone that I ended up with, these colors came out because I added alum, iron, and cream of tartan. Next time, I would like to try to make the dye more stable and dye directly with the dyes. I would apply red dragon fruit to apply the color that I wanted to created.
Thinking back the whole process of this laboratory, I think natural food dyes are related to many system. For instance, the water system might be affected by the dyes even if we dissolve the acids there are still some harmful chemicals might be involved in the liquid. In addition, the food system is also applied since it is a food dye. Like the pomegranate, people love to eat it because it has many nutrient but it has many seeds. Therefore, farmers or the food factory need to make them into juices or peel them. Skin is not eatable but it is a good dye materials. Famers can dry them and process it into organic natural dyes. 
