09/07/2026
We are wishing you a Happy Labor Day from Botanical Colors. We hope you are enjoying your last moments of summer and embracing the changes of the season. As the harvests are beginning and the height of the heat reaching its apex, we bring you some questions from our mailbag about our favorite summer hue, blue.
Two different vats with the same results
Your question
The backstory
I made a henna vat and dyed a number of protein skeins. They did not get as dark as I had hoped, but then when I rinsed them, the dye washed out, leaving the skeins pale, washed out blue.
Later, I made a 123 fructose vat as indicated in your instructions. I waited 3 days, warmed up the vat and began dyeing. The color of the liquid looked clear yellowish, and the bath was strong. I put the first skeins in for just a minute and they were lovely and dark after they came out, as were all successive yarns I added. They were all dipped a second time after they'd had plenty of time out of the bath to air out.
Later, I washed one of the skeins to get a sense of what the color would look like. To my dismay, the indigo color just kept washing out into the water. No matter how many rinses I gave it, color still came out and the skein looks pale and unsatisfying. What happened?
Answer
You should not be experiencing such dramatic washout from two different vats. It's very hard to diagnose what went wrong, but you might be able to narrow it down if you can dip something else - like a cotton swatch or strip, and see what happens with that. If the cellulose fibers are able to hold the color, with minimal washout, then your vat is good, and you should troubleshoot the fiber you are dipping. If the cellulose test strip also bleeds color, then something is off with your vat. You can review how to rebalance your vat using our instructions in the How To section of our website!
