Tea-time fashion
Using ordinary tea to dye clothes is ecologically safe — and the results are fantastic
By Karol Ann Bergman 04/23/2009
When it comes to being green and fashionable, I’d like to share my latest favorite DIY technique: Bringing dingy white clothes back to life again (dare we say “recycle”?) using an inexpensive natural ingredient, tea. Yes, that box of English breakfast that has been sitting unopened in your pantry for years is the perfect base for a natural nontoxic dye.
Before we go step-by-step, know that tea will only dye natural fibers, so forget about those yucky polyesters and rayons — it won’t work there. You want cottons, silks, wools and the like. It’s also important to know that tea-dyeing gives a slightly uneven, antique-looking color, so no matter how perfect your technique, things will always turn out a little unpredictably.
As with any non-colorfast dye, tea-stained garments will fade in sunlight and in the wash, so be gentle with them. Use light soap when washing and expect that with time your garment’s color will naturally fade. But the good news is that if you change your mind about the color you can always bleach it out … using environmentally safe bleach, of course.
So, let’s get started:
STEP 1
Make sure the garment is clean, because tea will take differently to dirt or sweat that hasn’t been washed out.
STEP 2
Take the clean, dry garment and soak it in hot water. Pre-soaking will help the dye disperse evenly into the fiber. Meanwhile, bring another pot of water to boil, about one gallon per pound of fabric to be dyed.
STEP 3
Add one tablespoon of salt to the boiled water (salt helps bond the dye to the fiber). Add in your tea bags (English breakfast is my favorite for its light brown color) and stir. It’s up to you how many tea bags to use, but I do one bag per cup of water, or 16 bags per gallon (which will give a deep rich brown). Lower the temperature and let the tea soak until the water is a deep brown, then carefully fish out the tea bags, squeeze the remaining color out of them and toss them out. Leaving the tea bags in while dyeing will leave dark splotches.
STEP 4
Submerge your pre-soaked garment into the dye pot. The length of time you leave it in is up to you, but stir frequently to prevent burning the fabric on the bottom of the pot. Stirring also helps disperse the dye evenly. Check the color on the garment frequently, and once you have achieved the color you like, use rubber gloves (the fabric and water are hot) to take the garment out of the dye pot and wring it out.
STEP 5
Run the garment under the tap to remove excess dye, starting with hot water and then switching to cold when excess dye is bled out. Wring it out, hang to dry, and — voila — what’s old is new again.
Tea-dyeing is not limited to just this technique; it’s boundless, so play around with it.
I love using tea to tie-dye dingy old cardigans I find at thrift stores. In fact, the last cardigan I dyed with tea was using the tie-dye method, and once I had wrung out my
last dip into the dye pot, I submerged only the cardigan’s lower half back in for another 15 minutes. It came out looking like a brand-new fashion cardigan that one might pay
big bucks for.
When you’re done with your dye pot, go ahead and pour it all down the drain with
a clear conscience: It’s completely nontoxic.
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