Natural dyes are not only beneficial for the earth but also for your skin. The combination of bamboo and natural dyes is our secret recipe for nourishing the skin and protecting the body.
Embrace the slight variations in knowing your garment is truly unique. Each batch is is slightly unique to the next.
Mordants we use are currently:
- Alum
- Gallnut
The plants we use are currently:
- Turmeric
- Indigo
- Madder Root
These three main ingredients make up our five colours: pumpkin, pink, honey, mauve and cherry.
Using natural dyes is an important step in the production of our garments as they have a minimal environmental impact when compared to conventional textile dyes as they come from nature, are biodegradable and disposing of them does not cause pollution.
Our natural dyes have minimal dye run but just in case - we suggest hand washing each item separately in cold water before your first wear. After the first wash, it is okay to machine washing on cold. Use natural soaps to clean your HARA pieces.
Low Impact Fibre-Reactive Dyes
HARA is committed to being transparent about our practices of being as sustainable as possible. For this reason, we have started to introduce Low Impact Reactive Dyes into our dye mix, alongside our natural dyes.
Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS) Certified low impact fibre reactive dyes don’t contain any toxic chemicals and don’t require toxic mordants (substances that fix dyes to fabric). They require significantly less water during the dyeing process, which reduces waste overall.
Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS) is an international trademark with stringent standards for product safety and sustainability. So you can be sure any dyes with the GOTS label are completely free of harmful substances. In order to qualify for the GOTS label, low impact dyes must also have an absorption rate of at least 70 percent. Because reactive dyed clothing binds dye with the fabric itself, there is far less runoff than you would see with traditional dyes. On top of that, the water used in the reactive dyeing process can be recycled.
Even though natural dyes are great for the environment when compared to conventional dyes, they require much higher mass to create colour. If manufacturers were to switch to using natural dyes, large amounts of land would have to be cleared for dyestuff production. In comparison, reactive dyes are highly-concentrated. Where several pounds of natural dyes would be required, it takes only a teaspoon of reactive dyes for the same amount of colour richness.
After taking into account the entire dye process we believe reactive dyes offer a more eco-friendly alternative to some of our naturally dyed colours due to the amount of water and natural dye material required to produce.
Our colours that incorporate reactive dyes are powder blue, charcoal and olive.
Next steps
Our mission has always been to be as sustainable as possible and that’s why we have teamed up with Deakin University, a leading University in Australia, to research an even more sustainable dye method that can scale, reduce waste, reduce resources and provide a high quality eco-friendly dye method beyond natural and reactive dyes.