Natural yellow dye plants for fabric

List of plants that can produce a yellow dye for fabrics, papers and other materials.

What if you wanted to dye some cloth or fabric yellow but prefer to use only natural plant materials? Do you know what plants make yellow dye? More importantly, what plants can be used to make a ‘permanent’ colorfast yellow?

Surprisingly, quite a few flowers, leaves, roots and whole plants can be used to make a nice yellow from warm buttery shades to crisp, lemon yellows.

Some plants create that color all on their own and some require something extra such as a specific mordant, a modifier (such as Iron) or pH adjuster like vinegar or baking soda.

(Note: almost all of these plants require a mordant to make the color adhere to the fabric.)

Many, many different factors influence the final color of any dye plant, including but not limited to one or more of the following:

• Stage of life of the plant
• Time of year
• Preceding weather conditions
• pH of the water used
• Mordant used, if any
• Modifiers used, if any
• Material of the dyepot

Plants that produce a yellow dye:

So, as you can see, making a list of plants that produce any color is not as simple as just naming the plant.

With that in mind, here are some natural dye materials that can be used to create a yellow dye for fabrics, papers and other materials.

This list is by no means exhaustive and I will continue to add to it as I find more yellow dye plants.

• Dyer’s Coreopsis (Coreopsis grandiflora)
• Dyer’s Chamomile (Anthemis tinctoria)
• Calendula aka Pot Marigold (Calendula officinalis)
• Marigold (Tagetes)
• Goldenrod (Solidago)
• Dyer’s Broom Greenweed (Genista Genista tinctoria)

• Safflower (Carthamus tinctorius)
• Yellow Cosmos (Cosmos sulphureus)
• Buckthorn (Rhamnus)
• Hawthorn (Crataegus)
• Osage Orange – bark (Maclura pomifera)
• Onion (peel) (Allium cepa)
• Dandelion (Toraxacum officinale)
• Birch – leaves (Betula)
• Yarrow (Achillea millefolium)

• Queen Anne’s Lace (Daucus carota)
• St. Johns Wort (Hypericum perforatumm)
• Juniper – leafy shoots (Juniperus communis)
• Daffodil (Narcissus)
• Pomegranate (Punica granatum)
• Weld (Reseda luteola)

As I mentioned earlier, there are different methods for extracting the natural dye out of plants. Some require a hot water extraction with continuous simmering while other plants need cool water.

The method depends on the plants as well as the type of fabric you wish to dye. This site is a really good resource for all natural dye techniques.

A good basic mordant for cellulose fibers such as cotton is Aluminum Acetate or AA. This tutorial teaches you the step by step process.

Make sure to bookmark this page as I will be updating it to add more yellow dye plants.
I hope it is helpful!
Annette

Natural yellow dye plants for fabric