How to Use Avocado Pits and Skins as a Natural Fabric Dye
If I asked you what colour avocado dye is, what would you say? Perhaps you’d guess green, after the colour of the fruit. Perhaps you’d think they would create an unsightly shade of purple-brown, just like the colour of the skin. As it turns out, avocado stones and skins have a little secret. They’re really the most gorgeous shade of peachy-pink.
So I just had to try my hand at dyeing something with avocados. It turns out it’s incredibly easy, and the results? Well, I have a feeling I’ll be dyeing just about anything this gorgeous shade of pale pink. It’s super easy and very rewarding.
Since this was my first time trying natural dyes, I did a fair amount of reading beforehand. Natural dyes can be a little bit temperamental, in that they’re sensitive to a lot of different things - the pH of the water, the origin of the avocados, the time you soak for, and the fibre you’re dyeing, to name just a few. If you embrace the fact that the results will be a little different every time, it’s actually quite wonderful that the dye is unique to each batch.
I’m particularly grateful to Rebecca Desnos for her amazing tips (which you can find here). She has a whole book on botanical dyes which is short but excellent. Her tips were super valuable in getting the best outcome. In particular, scrubbing as much flesh as possible off the stones and skins seemed to be very important, as did using gentle heat rather than boiling too hard.
I have a feeling I’ll be dyeing just about anything this gorgeous shade of pale pink
Here’s the method I used to give me the colour you see in the pictures. I used just stones (which are known as pits in the US), but you can use the skins instead, or both together. Note that you can only use natural fibres (like cotton, hemp, bamboo, linen, wool). I used unbleached hemp and cotton fabrics, along with two cotton muslins and a bamboo wipe. I wanted to see how the different fabrics would respond. Keep an eye out for future projects using the fabrics I dyed!
You will need:
Approximately 4 stones or 8 skins per 250g fabric
Large saucepan (large enough to fit your fabric with plenty of space for it to circulate)
A wooden spoon
Wash your fabric (in the washing machine), then leave it to soak overnight. Don’t dry it before you start dyeing!
Clean your stones and skins thoroughly so there is no flesh remaining and place them in a large saucepan (ideally aluminium, but any will do). Add enough water so that it will cover the fabric when you add it (but don’t actually add it yet!)
Bring the pot to the boil, then reduce the heat and simmer very gently for at least 30 minutes. Keep an eye on the pot - you’re looking for a rich burgundy colour. It might take longer than 30 minutes, or a little bit less. Be led by the colour rather than the time!
Remove the stones or pits (if you’re using pits, you may need to strain the dye through a muslin or cheesecloth to remove all of the residue) and add your fabric to the dye. If you’re dying wool or another fabric that struggles at high temperatures, make sure your dye has cooled a bit before you add your fabric. Otherwise, you can keep the fabric on a low heat to keep it warm (this is what I did).
Leave the fabric in the dye pot until it reaches your desired shade, stirring every now and again so you get an even colour. Mine was over a low heat on the hob for around 4 hours, at which point I removed the cotton muslins and bamboo wipe you see in the picture. I left the hemp and cotton fabrics a little longer because they were unbleached and needed a little more time to take the colour - I left them to sit in the pot overnight.
Take your fabric out and rinse it with a gentle detergent. Hang to dry, and enjoy the fact that you turned waste into a beautiful fabric dye.