We are delighted to bring you our first color we naturally dyed in-house at our cute little shared natural dye studio we just rented in Silver Lake, Los Angeles. Meet, petal.
A luscious, deep pink reminiscent of a just bloomed petal weighed down with droplets of morning dew. The color of enchanted spring sakura blossoms lining streets and covering mountains. The color of flushed cheeks, joyful with exuberance.
Pink asks us to let go of rigidity and pause to see the beauty around. Pink can't be taken too seriously, inviting joy and lightness into our days. A color recently so associated with feminine energy I for years wanted to banish it from my closet, but have recently found power and peace return to me from inviting doses of pink back into my life.
To start, we dyed three pieces petal. Our beloved Paros Sleep Shirt, the versatile Augusta Tank and our socks! We hope you love our first foray into in-house natural dyeing because we love it and hope to bring you so many more styles in petal and more colors throughout the year.
shop paros sleep shirt in petal
shop augusta tank in petal
shop organic socks in petal
FAQS
Why do the colors cost more?
We thought long and hard about this. We could have averaged the cost of the colors out over the undyed colorganic® pieces. Ultimately, we decided that in the effort of cost transparency, it was best to charge the difference in cost for naturally dyeing the piece. We also hope this will cause people who have never give a thought to how clothing gets its color to consider the widespread cheapness of chemical dyes. Naturally dyeing costs more financially, but it costs much less socially & environmentally.
Will the color fade over time?
Over time, some, as all dyes — even modern toxic chemical dyes — fade over time, but petal does not fade much in our experience. But we don't call it fading. We call it gorgeously transforming over time. We tested petal for wash fastness and light fastness and we are happy with our results. It's been washed twice, once by hand in our studio and then washed and tumbled dry before we send it to you so all initial bleed is over.
HISTORY OF MADDER
This is our second color with madder, our first was this deep red still available in our Barcelona & Hida styles. Using slightly less madder dramatically shifts the color from red to pink. Let's dive into the history of this rosy root.
"The flower is very small and of a greenish yellow color. The root is cylindrical and fleshy — and of a reddish-yellow color." This is an excerpt from a speech given by scientist William Henry Perkins at the Royal Society of Arts in London on May 8, 1879.
Using madder root to dye fabric is an ancient practice. Madder dyed cloth dating to the 3rd millennium BCE has been discovered in one of the oldest and largest cities of the Indus Valley Civilization, Mohenjo-daro, located in modern-day Pakistan. Madder has also been found in Egyptian tombs dating to 1500 BCE and discovered in a paint-makers shop in the fossilized city of Pompeii.
Madder root trade was once a big business but fell suddenly when a red color was chemically synthesized in 1869.
Our madder root (rubia cordifolia) is grown organically in India. The dye is extracted by drying their pinkish roots and then crushing, pounding and sifting until you achieve a rather fluffy orange-brown powder.
