Botanical Dye Tutorial: Red Onion Skins

Tips & Tricks from our Botanical Dye Studio – Natural Dyeing with Red Onion Skins

When dyeing with natural dyes, I'm always amazed by the variety of experimental possibilities. Onion skins are one of my favorite dye ingredients because they produce beautiful, consistent shades and are completely free. I'm writing this little tutorial so you can experiment as you please and get the dyeing bug just like I did.

This is what you need:

• Red onion skins
• 1 stainless steel pot
• 4 different (glass) vessels
• 4 spoons
• 3 different shaders
  • 1 tsp lemon or vinegar
  • 1 tsp iron sulfate (or rusty nails)
  • 1 tsp washing soda
  Shaders change the pH value of the colors, and by adding them to the dye bath, different shades can be achieved. But more on that later.
• 8x fabric samples made of silk and linen/cotton
  The fabrics must be made of 100% natural fibers and properly washed. You can learn more about the individual fabric types and preparation here . To ensure your natural colors remain consistent and are lightfast and washfast, you must mordant the fabric samples beforehand. You can use our mordant recipes for this. We've prepared a recipe for protein fibers and a recipe for cellulose fibers for you.

Recipe: Dye bath from red onion skins & shader

1. Fill a pot with approximately 1-1.5 liters of water, add your onion skins, and heat your onion bath. Stir well, making sure all the onion skins are covered with water. Now you can let your dye bath simmer gently for 30-60 minutes. Add a little more water if necessary.
2. Pour your finished onion bath evenly into 4 different jars/containers. My jars are each filled with approximately 200–250 ml of liquid.
3. Your four "onion dye bath jars" are now ready. Leave one jar as is with your pure onion dye bath, and add the tinting agents to the other three jars. Use one tinting agent per jar (1 teaspoon of lemon, 1 teaspoon of washing soda, and 1 teaspoon of iron sulfate). Stir your dye baths and you'll immediately see the colors change. Please do not use the container you added iron to cook afterward!
4. Now you can add your fabric swatches. I used one silk swatch and one linen swatch per jar. Even if you're impatient, you'll need to wait at least 12 hours for the natural colors to develop.

Many beautiful shades from red onion skins

The next day I took my fabric samples out of the dye baths and this is what my result looks like (from left to right):

• Onion skin dye bath without additives, natural
• Onion skin dye bath + lemon
• Onion skin dye bath + soda
• Onion skin dye bath + iron

On the left, you can see the silk samples, and on the right, the linen samples. As you can see, the color shades develop differently depending on the fabric chosen. I'm happy with my onion skin experiment and hope it's inspired you to get started with natural dyeing!