Wanna give your favorite white shirt or bed skirt a vintage look?
Avoid buying new to save some cotton: the #1 pesticide-laden crop of all. Instead repurpose with this easy, non-toxic way to spin your dingy into gold.
Give Your Old Clothes a New Look: Eco-Friendly Tea-Dyeing How-To
Why This Matters:
- Get an “in” vintage look without the use of toxic dyes.
- Save moola by salvaging your tarnished whites – no need to buy new.
- Producing just one t-shirt uses over 700 gallons of water as well as tons of pesticides and fertilizers.
On a Personal Note:
My friend, Steven, turned me onto tea dyeing because I loved his vintage-looking duvet. Only problem was that he didn’t give me good instructions so I had to perfect my skills by trial and error.
Ready to try?
- Watch the episode – and be sure to see the “lessons learned” at the end.
- Get your tea-dyeing supplies together (ie, cheap black tea, a bucket or tub , and water) and some dingy whites.
- Share your eco-conscious clothing creations on our Facebook page.
Our Fresh Pick
While waiting for the tea to set in the fabric, we skipped the black tea and sipped on the organic, fair trade, yummy stuff: Zhena’s Gypsy Tea. Try the sampler with these tantalizing flavors and reusable, stackable containers ($7 / 4 pack sampler).
A Deeper Dig
The Handbook of Natural Plant Dyes goes beyond tea and introduces you to gorgeous plant-based dyes . . . eggplant yarn, anyone?
Did you know?
The high levels of antioxidants in tea slow the absorption of caffeine, so no caffeine crash.
Great Idea. I thought you would use organic tea to do the dye process. Tea is loaded with pesticides and toxins.
@seadolphic… so glad you liked the idea! And yes, we definitely did consider suggesting organic tea (and did reco organic tea when drinking it yourself), but for this fabric tea dyeing, we went with “the cheap stuff” because we didn’t want it to cost an arm and a leg. This is where our mantra of “light green” comes in… we do what we can, and don’t sweat the rest. The fact is that by NOT buying new, you doing such a HUGE service to our environment, that we don’t want people to get turned off to tea dyeing due to the cost. However, for people like you, who care that much MORE about what’s put in the environment when growing the tea and will buy the organic kind for this DIY trick, we totally applaud you. Great to have you aboard here! WELCOME!!