Botanical Colors founder Kathy Hattori recently commented on an article titled “Mordant Madness!” on Buxton, Maine based Lana Plantae responding to a discussion about a person posting on a “social media page devoted to fiber arts,” that they were “attacked” by natural dyers at a fiber event because their wool was colored with synthetic vs. using natural dyes.

Lana Plantae founder Marcia Macdonald writes: “I do suspect the word “attack” may be a little strong and used for dramatic effect. Immediately there was a long string of commentary and it was very anti- natural dye, anti-mordant and overwhelmingly these comments were made by people that had, in fact, never actually dyed anything naturally. This is not the first time I have seen something like this happen.”

While MacDoanld gives a helpful 101 on the subject of natural dyes and mordanting, what seems even more interesting have been the comments at the bottom of her post.

Hattori tells me,  “The point is to develop synthetic dyes so that they don’t pollute and find robust natural dyes from the vast amount of agricultural and manufacturing food waste that we produce. The innovation must happen at both levels because we have a serious problem with toxic synthetic dye manufacturing that pollutes land and water, and agricultural bio-waste could be mined for additional benefits like color, medicine, oils and green chemicals before being composted or incinerated.”

Read the full article on Botanical Colors.