Making Dyes

By Kyle

The topic of this science article is natural dyes. I wanted to see if different berries made different dyes and what colors they made. I became interested in this topic because I like dyes and I always wanted to make them.

In order to research my topic I looked in the KIC journals. One journal article was written by Cory Adams in 1995 and it was called "Incredible Dyes. " He used onion skin to make a dye. I couldn't find anything on the internet.

My hypothesis was that strawberries and raspberries would make a red dye, blueberries would make a blue dye, and blackberries would make a black dye.

In order to make the dyes I got four plastic bowls, a measuring cup, a mixer, and a carton of each type of berry. I put 1/2 cup of hot water into each bowl, a cup of each type of berry in the bowl, and then smashed them with a mixer. I then placed a piece of white cloth in each bowl to try to dye it. I left the cloth in each bowl over the course of the experiment. I observed the color after 10 minutes, and then every day for four additional days.

From my research I found that blackberries made a purple dye and blueberries made a purple orange color. After three days they both got moldy. The raspberries were a light blue pink color and it smelled badly. The strawberry dye was pink in color, but then became white in color, it got moldy, but it smelled good.

One problem I had with my experiment was the dye became moldy and started to smell. Also I should have written in permanent marker on the white fabric.