We’re extremely happy to introduce a new product, the seventyfive Double Hair Tie, which is made with 100% Chinese Cizhu Bamboo Silk and naturally dyed in one of three colours. In this post we’re going to share some key information about the hairband, we’ll discuss why we created the product we did, and, following that, we’ll give you a behind the scenes look at the natural dyeing process of this product.
A smooth and customizable hair tie
The hair tie has a scrunchie with two ribbons attached to it, and it can be styled in a number of ways, although we've been wearing it in a bow. For this hair tie, we decided to use bamboo silk because it's a soft material that is kind to the hair. Bamboo silk is often used in pillowcases and bedsheets, as it feels nice to the touch and is hypoallergenic. For hair, this material reduces frizziness as it creates less friction than other materials, such as cotton. Bamboo silk is made from the threads of bamboo, and the bamboo silk we use is ethically sourced from Sichuan, China.
A natural alternative to chemical dyes
This item is object dyed using natural plant based dye. As you can see below (and in a few other products we’ll be releasing this year), we’ve been experimenting with a lot of different natural dyes recently and we’re trying to move as many of our products to natural dye as is practical. As we’ve said before, natural dye creates unique colours and different tones and shades. It doesn’t completely consume the material, like chemical dyes, so every naturally dyed object has its own character and is unique. Due to this process there might be differences in colour on each hair tie, and, while we control for imperfections, your hair tie’s colour may not look identical to the ones on our website or the ones your friends have.
For this run we have used three key dye ingredients:
avocado
pomegranate
indigo
Behind the scenes
To help you understand the natural dye process and our practice a bit more, here is a short photo diary of the dyeing process.
I. Preperation
We start by preparing the hairband, and after stitching, we scour the hair tie. Scouring is an important part of natural dyeing as it gets rid of the oil or wax that became embedded on the fabric during weaving. After scouring we mordant the fibre. This is the vital next step because mordant is what helps the pigment stay on the fibre.
II. Mordanting
When the fabric is scoured and mordant has been applied we select the ingredients we will use to achieve a specific colour. Here we are using avocado and pomegranate rinds for base colours. This is one of our favorite steps because these ingredients are our food waste, and this process enables us to use the food we buy, from pip to skin.
III. Dye Bath
A dye bath is then made with the selected ingredients, and the hair ties are added to the bath. We can use either time or quantity of dye stuff to affect the hair tie colour, although a number of factors can influence any given colour, including the material used, the hardness of the water, the mordant process, the dye stuff and the time dyed for. After we reach the desired colour we take the material out and they will then be given a second soak to modify the colour. Here we use a tea blend for the avocado’s second dip, and an iron bath for the pomegranate’s.
avocado dye bath
pomegranate dye bath
Once the colour is right we take them out, dry them and find any that do not have the right colour coverage. These may be redyed to achieve the correct colour. Once dry we carefully pack the hair ties in our eco friendly packaging.
avocado and pomegranate dye samples(right) in comparison with chemically dyed original samples(left)
We actually conceived of this product as a chemically dyed one, but we decided to find a way to replace the chemicals with a natural dye. This wasn’t easy, it took quite a lot of experimentation over a long period of time. But, when you look at this comparison between two samples, the chemically dyed samples versus the naturally dyed samples, we think we’ve done a good job in matching the colour. I can tell you, getting it right after many attempts felt GOOD! Furthermore, on reflection, we much prefer the naturally dyed version of the hair tie as there is a greater complexity to the colour and the product.
We hope you were able to learn a bit more about this process and our practice. If you’re interested in this process we have something interesting coming out soon, keep your eyes peeled.
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