WASH FASTNESS PROPERTIES OF PRE-MORDANTED TIE-DYED COTTON FABRICS DYED WITH MUUKU BARK AND MAROGOLD FLOWERS NATURAL DYES

Abstract

There is a global quest for consumer eco-friendly and sustainable products fashioned with natural dyes through either printing or dyeing. However, research on imparting white patterns on textile substrates with natural dye has concentrated on dyeing and printing techniques rather than on tie-dyeing technique. Tie-dying an ancient craft used for traditional/local identification has been executed at room temperatures with synthetic dyes. This paper thus investigates the effect of mordants on wash fastness of pre-mordanted tie-dyed cotton fabrics using natural dyes. Colourants from two plants acquired from Kenya namely marigold flower and muuku bark plant were extracted using aqueous extraction method. Before dyeing, the fabrics were scoured and bleached. Saltless dyeing preceded by first pre-mordanting tie-dyed cotton fabrics with copper sulphate and anhydrous Iron sulphate mordant for 30 minutes at 1000C. After pre-mordanting, fabrics were dyed with extracted colourants at 1000C for 45minutes. Colour change and staining to wash on the tie-dyed fabric was analyzed. Tie-dyed cotton fabrics tied using binding and tying technique dyed with muuku natural dye gave intricate brighter lines and shades respectively than those dyed with marigold flowers. Fastness properties of the tie-dyed fabrics were acceptable ranging from 3/4 (fairly good) to 4/5 (very good). Anhydrous Iron sulphate as an inducer gave the best fastness grades. The results suggest tie-dyeing as a possible technique for pattern creation of environmental friendly fabrics.

Keywords

• Natural dyes
• Tie-dyed
• sustainable
• fastness
• eco-friendly