Naturally coloring Easter eggs?

[Trac]

So we've tried before, squishing blueberries, and beet juice and things like that. Although the colors are beautiful, they don't really stay all that well. If you touch them the color rubs off. The only ones that were actually colored that you could touch were the ones boiled in turmeric water.

Is there a way to do them so that they are naturally and permanently colored? DS is asking if we can just get the commercial dye to do them this year, and I don't want to, but he's been disappointed with the results before. Has anyone had more success with it than we have? If so, how exactly did you do it?

[St. Margaret]

Were you using vinegar? We did the natural dye last year, and some dyes really didn't come out well, too light, had to dye forever to get a light color, but they didn't rub off. I'm pretty sure we followed the article posted here on Mothering.

This year my mom's in charge (Easter's at her house, 500 miles away), plus DD couldn't do that much with the dye, plus I don't like eggs that much, so I'm over it . Crayons and stickers I think until the kids are older.

[pandora665]

Whole Foods had a natural dye kit in the egg section for $5.99. Wonder if that would make you and your DS happy?

We don't do food coloring at all, and we still dye eggs with a Paas kit. I just assume we won't eat the ones we color, which is probably horribly wasteful and such. We only do 6-12 each year, though. Ah well, she LOVED coloring eggs last year, so it's happening the same way this year for everyone's sake.

[Boot]

onion skins work really well. If you wrap the egg in onion skins covered in a a rag and tightly wrapped, then boil it in water and vinegar for half an hour you will get beautiful patterns on the egg. you can also put leaves or flowers inside to make a negative pattern on the egg. good luck

[Polliwog]

Frontier has lots of ideas on their website.

[mtiger]

onion skins work really well. If you wrap the egg in onion skins covered in a a rag and tightly wrapped, then boil it in water and vinegar for half an hour you will get beautiful patterns on the egg. you can also put leaves or flowers inside to make a negative pattern on the egg. good luck

Dip the eggs in water, roll in uncooked rice, then wrap in onion skins and rags, etc. Traditional Latvian eggs.

For colors (red, blue, etc), we use Greek dyes with brown eggs.

[snoopy5386]

can I ask why you are against the Paas dyes? I know they are artificial, but you don't eat the egg shell and as long as the egg isn't cracked, the color doesn't leak through.

[Bird Girl]

Commercial egg dye is food coloring and an acid to bind the color. You can use food coloring and vinegar if you like--it's cheaper than the commercial tablets.

Both are totally safe, and, unless you eat the shells of the eggs, not eaten anyway. Using regular food dye or commercial kits are both No Big Deal, and are not endangering your child's health in any way.

[Trac]

We are on the Feingold program because DS is affected by artificial colors (among other things), which can apparently also be absorbed through the skin. I don't know for sure that *he* would be affected this way, but I'd rather not find out.

Thanks for the reminder on the onion skins...I'd forgotten about that, and remember that they are beautiful!

What are Greek dyes?

[Addie]

Saw this today... sounds like it might be the same as what you've already tried, though.

[Trac]

Thank you. Those are the same foods that I've used, but I didn't have a "method," really...I don't remember using vinegar, so maybe that was the problem. I'll give it another try.

[mtiger]

Originally Posted by Trac

What are Greek dyes?

Egg dyes from Greece - they tend to be much deeper and vibrant than Paas, which I find to be more pastel-ish. I suspect they may not be worth trying as they definitely can go through the skin.

[ALittleBitCrunchy]

Not much time to find scraps, but have you considering silk-dying the eggs? We're trying it this year and I have high hopes We bought a kit on Etsy but is you have or can thrift some silk garments, you would just need some vinegar and a pot for the hard-boiling.

[SquishyKitty]

We just use food coloring and vinegar. Since DS isn't into pretty pastels, he likes the darker, bolder colors that we get using just drops of food coloring. Like, dark reds, dark blues, dark greens......

[SquishyKitty]

Originally Posted by Trac

We are on the Feingold program because DS is affected by artificial colors (among other things), which can apparently also be absorbed through the skin. I don't know for sure that *he* would be affected this way, but I'd rather not find out.

Thanks for the reminder on the onion skins...I'd forgotten about that, and remember that they are beautiful!

What are Greek dyes?

Can your DS wear a pair of gloves to avoid coming in contact with the dye?

[mumm]

Originally Posted by snoopy5386

can I ask why you are against the Paas dyes? I know they are artificial, but you don't eat the egg shell and as long as the egg isn't cracked, the color doesn't leak through.

Oh, but it does leak through, and then you have an gorgeous egg to eat. We like dying so much that we dye raw eggs too. You can only eat so many hard boiled! We already did some dying on the equinox but I think we'll do it again this weekend.

This is my recipe-
1 cup chopped up color (onion skins and beet scraps)
1 cup water
1 T vinegar


Boil the veg scraps with water for a long time. (As in you forget about it and then come back, say Oh Sh*t, and turn it off! ) Let it cool, drain out the scraps, add vinegar to the colored water and get to work.

I'm going to try the rice and onion skin combo this year. Looks neat.

[Jugs]

We used beets for pink dye, red cabbage for blue dye and onion skin for red dye. For each batch, we simmered the vegetable in water for an hour, strained out the solids and added a tablespoon of vinegar. The colors come out paler than artificial dyes, but still very pretty. Oh, and after the color dries we rub them with a dab of oil to give the shells a nice sheen and enhance the color.

[Trac]

Thank you all so much! I'm very optimistic about it...it seems maybe just my method was off. We're going to give it a try today...

[Tigeresse]

We just did this yesterday and in addition to onion skins and beets used turmeric in one of the pots. The eggs came out beautiful...although I did use brown eggs and had to keep 'em in the pots for quite awhile!

[Funny Face]

The silk tie method is GORGEOUS! I just saw some a friend did and I definitely want to try that next year.