Colour Code: Shades of Green

Luscious forests, wide-open fields, sparkling emeralds, lush grasses… All green. The colour of nature. Also, the colour of life, prosperity, harmony, renewal, calm and safety. In colour therapies, green is recognised for its cleansing and energising properties, and is believed to be the colour of healing. The significance of this earth colour in our clothing goes back to prehistoric times, when humans first felt the need to cover themselves, and used what they could: animal skins, tree barks and, of course, leaves. 

The colour 

Typically, the green colour pigment is obtained from combining yellow—a warm colour—and blue—a cool colour, making it neutral in nature, which is why it comes across as so soothing, and always elegant—whatever the skin tone of the wearer. At Sodhani Biotech, with the environment as our inspiration and with nature as our guide, we are manufacturing and promoting colours that are in consonance with the natural ecosystem. 

Sources of green

Now, as we’ve already mentioned, the colour green is traditionally obtained by combining yellow and blue. But natural blue, or indigo, is not a water-soluble dye. What that means is, the dye needs to go through intense vatting (processing in a vat) so it can combine more easily with the yellow, to give green. At Sodhani Biotech, we have our best R& D team putting their heads together to find a more viable, responsible solution. We are working on developing a blue from a natural source that will mix well with other colours to give us a wider range of shades of green. 

But for now, we would like to present to you, our olive green. Derived from the chlorophyll in the mulberry leaf, our olive green extract is extremely versatile, and can give 10 different shades of green, ranging from a pale jade, to a deep bottle green, depending on the extract concentration one chooses for the dye bath. This powder-based dye can be used for dyeing textile fibre, yarn, fabric as well as textile printing. It works well for all kinds of textile fibres, natural or synthetic, including cotton, silk, wool, polyester and nylon. The olive green can also be dyed in cold water, and is very well suited to continuous dyeing, in which the fabric is passed through a roller, and takes on the colour in less than a second, as opposed to the exhaust dyeing process, which takes anywhere between 60 and 80 minutes. 

Why natural green

Like we’ve said before, green is the colour of nature, and what better way to get the colour, than from nature itself! Besides being better for the skin due to the lack of synthetic chemicals and harmful agents, our mulberry leaf extract dye brings other benefits. Rich in antioxidants, it has anti-inflammatory and healing properties. So when you wear a garment that has been dyed using this green, it fastens up the healing process for rashes and other skin ailments. Some preliminary studies suggest that it may even have anti-carcinogenic (cancer-preventing) properties, though research on that is still underway. 

Our olive green dye extract is really easy for any natural-dyeing enthusiast to work with, besides being an excellent choice for garment manufacturers and fashion brands, as the colour, contrary to popular perception, does not run so easily.

DIY[psb1] 

Our olive green extract is very simple for anybody to work with. Begin by taking water, in a ratio of 20 litres of water per kg of fabric, [psb2] in a dyes bath, and then add the dye—three to five per cent[psb3]  of the weight of the fabric, depending on how deep you’d like the colour. Heat up to 50-60°C. Your dye solution is ready[psb4] . Add your fabric to the solution and allow the dye bath to simmer[psb5] , for 60-90 minutes—however long it takes for the fibre to absorb the dye thoroughly. You’ll need to keep an eye on the bath. Drain out the solution and wash the fabric with cold water. Wash with a non-ionic or gentle soap[psb6] , such as one suitable for woollen and delicate clothes, for 20 minutes and then wash with cold water, once again.

If you’d like to go the whole hog, you can learn more about how to set up a bath dye from scratch, through our Dye It Yourself workshops.

Go green, with our green!