Eucalyptus is not native to where I live but I have watched dyers (with a bit of envy) from other parts of the world use these plants as a source of color and tannin. Each year I grow a plant or two for experimentation. These experiments have led me to some interesting observations.
The variety commonly found at our local garden center is Silver Dollar Gum (Eucalyptus cinerea). A friend, visiting from Australia, fondly recognized it in the garden as “gummy”. It will grow as an annual here and I always dry the round “silver dollar” leaves for dye. Sometimes I can even acquire them amongst the floral arrangements in the local grocery store. This year I had a additional variety (Eucalyptus globulus). It was grown by a friend from seeds that she brought from a tree in her yard in Ethiopia.
Dye tests were done on wool, both with and without an alum mordant, using dried leaves at 100% of the weight of fiber. Plants contain many different colorants. In the case of the Eucalyptus leaves, they contain both a flavonol and a tannin. The flavonols are typically yellow in color and require a mordant to attach to the fiber. The tannins produce a variety of colors and do not require a mordant.
I placed non-mordanted wool fabric in the bath with the leaves. It was brought to a low simmer (approximately 190 degrees F). The color was slow to come but after about 2 hours the Eucalyptus cinerea resulted in a deep red/orange, while the Eucalyptus globulus turned a deep brown.
Alum-mordanted wool was dyed in a separate bath. The fiber quickly (within 30 minutes) turned a brilliant yellow from both varieties of eucalyptus. I removed some of the fiber from the dyebath when the yellow was still bright. As the rest of the fiber stayed in the bath, the tannins were released, changing the color of the wool from yellow to either a deep yellow/orange or a yellow brown. After two hours in the bath the mordanted fiber had been dyed by BOTH the flavonol and the tannin.
Several years ago I heard Michel Garcia say that the clearest yellow color from plants may come at the beginning of a dyebath, before any tannins are extracted. As the fiber stays in the bath with the dyestuff, the tannins are released and the color becomes deeper and duller. The eucalyptus is a dramatic illustration of this principle but other plant materials also indicate the same principle.
I have not yet completed lightfastness tests on any of these samples but they are in process. I would guess that the deeper, tannin-rich colors will be more lightfast than the brighter flavonols.
Natural Dye: Experiments and Results 
Love these colours, thanks for sharing
I learn so much from you, Catharine. Please continue sharing your experimentations.
Thanks Barbara. Much appreciated…C
Hi Catherine, What a beautiful and informative Article on the eucalyptus dyeing! I think all of the colors are beautiful And it is so cool to be able to get that Variety with one plant! I really love The darkish red after 2 hours in the dyebath. Thank you for this information. I think I will be experimenting with some Eucalyptus this winter! Cheers, Kathleen Lopes
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Interesting! Did you create a dye bath before putting the wool in or did the wool and the leaves go into the water at the same time? Thanks!
Everything went into the bath at the same time. I find this works very well, especially for plant materials that take a long time to release their colorants.
Thank you!
Thank you for sharing your work. I admire your organized approach and explanations. I chuckled to see the “unorganized” file name!
JUST stumbled across your blog and so coincidental that just the other night I finally sat down and did up a euc cin batch! It was a bunch that had been drying down my basement for over a year. I stripped the leaves off the stems and simmered them up separately (quick rinsed the dust off first!) After 2 hours, the stem bath had turned a dark red and the leaves an orangey-rusty-brown. Thank you for the flavo vs tannin explanation…now I have a better idea how to control the color!
Very interesting!
Thank you so much for this information, I really appreciate your studies.
the interesting thing about eucalyptus (which also contain quercitrons, btw) is that the dye takes differently if the fresh dyebath is allowed to cool first, and then re-heated. also, when testing samples (particularly with E.cinerea) it’s amusing to prepare two pots of dye and 24 (or so) samples. to one pot, add the samples at 5 minute intervals…in the other, put all the samples in and then take them out at 5 minute intervals. in my local water (pH neutral, no added mordants), i ended up with two quite differently coloured sets of swatches.
What a rich source of dye! Thanks for this. I’m even more envious now of those who have easy access to the plants. Maybe next year I’ll grow more.
beautiful, interesting, and inspiring me to do more with eucalyptus. Thank you!
I plan to share your post in my blog https://hellocreativestimes.com. Since you have enabled sharing on your post, I am assuming that you are allowing others to share this post. However, if you have any objection to sharing your post, please let us know as soon as possible. Thank you.
🙂
You are welcome to share….
You have great blog. Thanks. 🙂
Thank you for sharing this info. Now I understand the mixed color results I have seen on various blogs.I have a Gummy plant in my VA garden, but it is recovering from a harsh winter. So I will supplement with the ‘bouquets’ of eucalyptus sold at Trader Joe’s for a couple dollars. They appear to contain 2 or three different types with different leaf shapes.
Hi Audrey – My specialisation is eucalyptus dyeing, but I rarely have time to reply to these questions.
you will see some of my results on my instagram – gondwana colour. regarding different colours achievable – there are many variables in the way the dey batch is prepared – I usually boil up muy leaves the day (or 2) before and let them steep with an insulating blanket – mostly this is so that the ot is already warm and doesn’t use extra fuel to get back to boiling. then I put my wetted fabrics in before it boils, bring it to boiling point, turn it down simmer very slowly for up to 3 hrs, turn the heat off then cover again to stay warm for the next 24 hrs.
Then there is the element of surprise with different species that never slows my enthusiasm. With 900 distinct species in Australia, there is never a shortage of things to test. If you look at Sally Blake’s website – she is a artist from Canberra who received an Australia Council grant to test over 200 species in the National Botanical Gardens. She has generously collated a database on line -it shows some of the magnificant colours.
hope this is useful
Susan Fell Mclean
Reblogged this on Lakeshore Textile's Blog and commented:
I’m so excited about this blog post because we have tons of eucalyptus around us!
Not all of them are good for the artist dyer, most will give you some colour, but its a matter of extensive testing.
So excited about this blog post. We have several different varieties of eucalyptus; a tree and some ornamentals that are grown in our area for the floral industry. Thank you for the inspiration!
Hallo, I am an italian based apassionate for natural dyeing. In my region their is a lot of Dyers greenweld,i tried it with cotton without resault (pre-morder with tannin acid and allume). I see that you achive THOSE colors on linen.
Could you please revel the secret?
Paola
I am not secretive about dye recipes but I have chosen not to put recipes on the blog. I do share them in the context of a class, or publications where there is ample time or space to discuss the reasoning behind the recipe. When recipes are given out without proper explanations I find that dyers get even more confused.
I have included some recipes in my Woven Shibori book and this may be a good place to start but it is not a comprehensive dye book. Joy Boutrup and I are currently working on a more in-depth book on natural dye process that allows us to discuss the principles, as well as provide many recipes that will be of use to the dyer. We are hoping for a publication date in the second half of 2018.
I hope you understand.
Joy and I will be teaching a two day workshop focused on cellulose printing and dyeing at the ETN conference in Borås Sweden in September 2017.
Dear Catharine,i have finished to read your blog and i found (maybe) the answer for my problem. Thank you so much for being inspirative even if for obviouse reasons you share just a piece of your knowlidge. I am waiting for your book wich i bought couple days ago. Even if i am not a weaver,the way of thinking,trying to do it as much professional and meaningfull as possible is something what entusiate me. Sorry for my bad english,if i don’t express myself corretly.
I wish you all the best! Paola
this is very interesting thank you… Fashion Student