Chlorophyllin, what is it, and how to dye fabrics with it?

dyeing with chlorophyllin

There are no true one-step greens in natural dyes. It is either a khaki or moss-green of sorts by post-mordanting a yellow dye with ferrous sulfate, or a compound color process using a blue indigo ground, then mordanting and overdyeing with a yellow.

Enter chlorophyllin:

Chlorophyllin is a water-soluble derivative of chlorophyll, a pigment that is found in green plants and is responsible for their characteristic green color. Chlorophyllin is produced by removing the magnesium ion from the chlorophyll molecule and replacing it with copper or sodium. This modification makes chlorophyllin more stable and soluble in water than regular chlorophyll.

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Chlorophyllin is present in all green leaves, for making extract there are several commonly used plants: alfalfa and Mulberry. Our extract comes from the mulberry tree (morus alba). It has a nice 'grassy' smell in the dye pot.

Chlorophyllin is used as a food coloring and as a dietary supplement, but we will use it as a fabric dye instead!

Did you know: Our CHLOROPHYLIN EXTRACT is certified by the Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS) for use on fibers that will be labeled ORGANIC.

Chlorophyllin is not the most light fast dye, so the mordanting is very imporant. For the samples in this blog I used Aluminium Tri-Formate, which is my allround mordant in the studio now. I love it so much because I can batch-mordant many different fabrics at the same time and just leave them in my mordant container. The formatic acid keeps it from going funky and I can keep the fabrics submerged indefinetely and just pick it up when it is convenient for me.

Obviously you could also use alum, or aluminium lactate or aluminium acetate for this. Copper as a mordant is another viable option. Copper sulfate tends to make yellows greener, so to use it for this green pigment makes sense and works well.

To dye:

• Dissolve 5-10% WOF chlorophyllin extract in hot water.

• Top up with warm water so that there is enough volume of dye to immerse the fabrics easily.

• Make sure your mordanted fabrics are wetted out well so that the extract can penetrate the fibers well.

• Ph shifts do not make a difference in the dye bath.

• Stir the fabrics in the hot dye bath regularly to get even coverage.

• Keep dyeing for at least 45 minutes, then let your fabrics cool down in the dye pot or keep overnight.

• Dry and rinse with cold soapy water.

In the dye pot:

Morus albą, chlorophyllin extract on silk

On silk

Morus albą, chlorophyllin extract on silk

On wool

Morus albą, chlorophyllin extract on wool and wool yarn

On cotton it works equally well and there is no disadvantage using cellulose fabrics.