Try Symplocos for a 100% plant based dye process and stunning new shades.
In the second half of the 19th century, botany was extremely popular. Thomas Hogg, Jr. introduced Japanese and Asian plants to the delightful arboreta of the time, some of which still exist today.
Variants of Symplocos trees like Symplocos tinctoria, and Symplocos paniculata were imported to the Carribean and the United States in around 1869. Today you may find them locally under the name Asiatic sweetleaf or sapphire-berry, Horsesugar, or simply Sweetleaf (not to be confused with Stevia Sweetleaf). It is said the berries can be eaten.
While these trees were introduced elsewhere for their decorative flowers and berries, in Asian countries like Indonesia and India, the leaves and bark were being utilized as a plant based mordant in dye processes since forever. This use of plant based mordants is not universal. In Peru for example, no use of alum accumulating plants is known, they used the natural alum deposits in the eart. Club moss is known to have been used in early European dyers, but was discontinued as soon as imported alum from Bagdad, Turkey and later Italy became available. Symplocos is a plant based mordant that is still being used in Indonesia and India and it is the mordant that goes best on cotton, when dyeing with Ceriops Tagal.
Symplocos is a bio accumulator (aka hyperaccumulators) of aluminium, like club moss. This gives us the opportunity to make a 100% plant based, lasting colour. The powdered bark or leaves of the Symplocos tree can accumulate as much as 1,000 mg per kg (2), so it can easily replace alum in traditional dye recipes.
In Indonesia Symplocos is collected from the fallen leaves, which makes it very seasonal. Covid, tropical storms and other weather-related issues have made it very difficult to obtain that material the past three years. In India the bark is used.
When you use Symplocos with natural dyes or eco printing for improved light-fastness and wash-fastness, the same way an alum based mordant would. Some colours like logwood and madder can look different than when using regular alum, as I will show in the samples given below. For the samples made, I mordanted 2 strips of 70 grams scoured cotton in respectively 50% and 100% WOF, I added 0.5 gr of cream of tartar per liter of water because our water has a lot of minerals and I understood this may interfere with the uptake.
Prepare the mordant:
Weigh the Symplocos and add plenty of water.
Boil it for at least 30 minutes.
The symplocos will sink to the bottom of the pot.
If you are dyeing yarns: filter the mordant water to avoid the 'grit' getting stuck in your yarn. I was going to mordant cotton so I simply added my pre-wetted cotton to the hot liquid (no fear for thermic shock here) and boiled it together for 30 minutes. I let the cotton cool down in the mordant 'juice". You can keep and re-use a mordanting bath once. The order I would work is: hot extraction, hot mordant for cotton, let cool down in mordant. Squeeze out mordant water and re-use cold or slightly warming (no more than 50ºC) for silk.
Rinse the fabric well in cold water before dyeing to remove all the 'grit'. My suggestion is to bulk-mordant and use the rinse and spin function on your washing machine for this, in my experience that saves a good amount of water in comparison to rinsing by hand.
This is the fabric after mordanting with Symplocos. The hue is a light orange/brown. You do not see this after dyeing. 100% WOF Symplocos is only ever slightly darker than fabric mordanted with 50% WOF.
FLTR: Alum/soda ash mordant, 50% WOF Symplocos , 100% WOF Symplocos
I made a set of 4 fabrics and three dyes to show the difference in dye results. We have:
1 No mordant
2 Alum/soda ash mordant at 15%
3 50% WOF Symplocos
4 100% WOF Symplocos
The dyes are:
A Madder at 50% WOF
B Weld at 25% WOF
C Logwood chips at 30% WOF
Samples A1-4
Madder at 50% WOF
Samples B1-4
Weld looks more mellow on the samples mordanted with Symplocos.
Samples C1-4
Logwood at 30% WOF
Excuse the horrible results and take note this is what happens when you do not stir enough. Oh my! Symplocos no doubt gives darker colours here
Conclusion;
Symplocos can be an excellent replacer of alum based mordants to achieve a 100% plant-based dye product. You can use it with natural dyes and botanical prints on all fabric. Use at 50-100% and re-use the mordant bath