Simmer the rind for an hour the next day.ģ. Use the same amount of dried rind as fibre (for example if your piece of cotton fabric weighs 80 grams, use 80 grams of pomegranate rind).Ģ. Soak the pomegranate rinds in hot water overnight. If you have access to large fruits from a market, eat the fleshy pulp and use the rind.ġ. If the fruits are small, use the whole fruit broken up. However, if you have access to a pomegranate tree you can use fresh fruit. Most dyers buy dry chopped pomegranate rinds which come from ripe fruits.

Immature fruits give pale yellows, while ripe fruits give golden yellows. Pomegranate rinds are popular for contact dyeing (ecoprints). You can over-dye it with indigo to make beautiful dark greens. With the addition of iron, you will get mossy greens, greys and blacks. You will get yellow fawn when using pomegranate without a mordant and golden yellows with a mordant. This dye is high in tannin (19 to 26%), therefore it works particularly well with cotton and other plant fibres but you can also use it to dye wool and silk. In Rome it was known as punica, as it was introduced from the Punic nation (now Tunisia) and this is why the scientific (generic) name is ‘Punica’. The city of Granada in Spain was named after the pomegranate fruit. The common name ‘pomegranate’ means seeded apple in Latin. It was a symbol of love in antiquity and even features in an ancient Egyptian love song. Omegranate is one of the oldest fruits in cultivation and its rind has been used as a dye by carpet makers for millennia.

One tree yields about 1 kilo of dried rind a year.ĭyed with pomegranate & indigo (top) or lac (bottom) The leftover rind is not wasted but used as a dye. The flesh can be made into juice and the syrup grenadine, whilst the seeds can be ground and made into a spice called anardana. Inside there are many seeds, each surrounded by a ruby-red fleshy pulp. The fruit is spherical, up to 12 cm in diameter and has a tough leathery skin. Pomegranate is cultivated in warm countries all over the world. This attractive shrub is hardy, drought resistant and long lived (up to 200 years). Pomegranate is a deciduous spiny shrub or small tree belonging to the family Lythraceae. Dyers use the rind to produce golden yellows, greens, greys and blacks. K nown as a symbol of love in antiquity, the pomegranate has been a popular fruit for thousands of years. Wild Colours natural dyes > yellow dye plants > dye with pomegranate Wild Colours - Exciting colours from Natural Dyes Wild Paper handmade paper for printing, artists & gift wrap Wild Fibres - natural fibres for felting, spinning & dyeing!

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