Dyes in Natural Baby Products

To color many natural baby products, all natural dyes must be used for the baby product to still be considered natural. As a natural dye for all products needs to be derived from natural sources, plants, flowers, and other natural, edible materials are used to color many natural baby products. Natural baby products range from bed sheets to clothes and mattresses and, for all to be colored vibrantly and not left a white or grey color, a natural dye needs to be added to the fabric creation process. Whether the natural baby products are made from all natural processed cotton, bamboo, wool, or hemp fibers, the dyes used to color the baby products must be natural as well, or the end product won’t be considered natural by the FDA definition.

To make a natural dye to color cloth baby products, the original ingredients should be picked at the peak of freshness, and this includes flowers in full bloom and nuts and fruits at the peak of maturity. To create the dye, the plants should be chopped into fine pieces and placed in a large pot of boiling water. The ratio of water to plant substance to create a natural dye is often two to one. The plants should boil and simmer in the water for an hour and then strained out. The fabric can then be added to the dye and, for a stronger color, should be left in overnight. The fabric itself to absorb the dye better needs to be soaked in a color fixative beforehand. While the standard color fixatives are a chemical compound, natural ones can be made with a water and salt or vinegar solution. Once the fabric has soaked in the color fixative, it can be rinsed before being placed in the natural dye.

Natural dye used for any number of baby products can be used for a number of colors. To create many of these natural dyes to color natural baby products, many different plants or other natural substances can be used. Some examples include:
         • Orange dye made from bloodroot, sassafras leaves, onion skin, gold lichen, barberry, giant                 coreopsis, turmeric, or pomegranate.
         • Brown dye made from wild plum root, oak bark, sumac leaves, walnut, tea bags, juniper                     berries, coffee grounds, boiled acorns, yellow dock, beetroot, or red leaf buds.
         • Pink colored dye made from strawberries, cherries, red raspberries, roses and lavender, or                 lichens.
         • Blue or purple colors can be made from red cabbage, woad leaves, mulberries, elderberries,              red grapes, blueberries, cherries, blackberries, Japanese indigo, red cedar root, red maple                  tree bark, or black iris.
         • Red color is made from red leaves, sumac fruit, dandelion, beets, rosehips, chokecherries,                  madder, dried hibiscus flowers, blackberries, or Brazil wood.
         • Black can be created from iris flowers, sumac leaves, and carob pods.
         • Green shades can be created from Artemisia, artichokes, spinach leaves, black-eyed Susan                flowers, grass, nettle, plantain roots, lily-of-the-valley, barberry root, or red onion skin.
         • Yellow is made with a number of plants and flowers including saffron, Syrian rue, red clover,              yellow cone flower, onion skins, marigold, willow leaves, Queen Anne’s Lace, burdock, celery,              goldenrod, sumac bark, weld, Cameleon plant, dandelion flowers, Osage orange, daffodil,                    Mullen, hickory, tea, white mulberry tree bark, paprika, beetroot, and turmeric.

As natural baby products are increasingly becoming more colorful, with such colorful natural baby products including many brands of baby clothes and Cotton Monkey bed sheets, natural dyes are becoming easier to make and color cloth. While natural baby products, especially clothes and sheets, were appearing on the market, many products had the off-white color of unbleached cotton. In the present, natural baby products are more visible than they were a decade ago and many more natural baby products are being dyed in bright colors ranging from purple to yellow to red.

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