For the second year, we’ve experimented with naturally dyeing Easter eggs at home, and we’re just loving these beautiful results! We wanted to share our technique so that you can make your own eco-dyed eggs this season, too.
First of all, you’re going to need some eggs! White eggs will give you the most vibrant final colours; last year, however, we could only get brown eggs, and they still turned out pretty nice, just a bit more subdued. I gently washed my eggs with soapy water and rinsed them well to prepare them for dyeing.
If you want to create the same leaf and floral resist designs that we did, you’ll need to collect small leaves and flowers! Generally speaking, thinner items will more easily sit flush against the surface of your eggs, giving you a crisper image - I used an old oak leaf on one egg, and because it was dry and stiff it didn’t have ‘perfect’ contact with the egg, and as a result that imprint was softer and less precise. Cut up some old pantyhose into approximately 5” lengths, then press your flowers and leaves onto your egg - wetting the egg and/or plant material will help it stick to the egg. Gently stretch the piece of pantyhose over your egg, and twist it to tie it into a knot at the back. I got my favourite results from papery old hydrangea blossoms, but fresh flowers would work great as well!
You can use many household items/food scraps to make your egg dye. We used yellow onion skins (for orange), red cabbage (blue), nettle tea (green), and turmeric (yellow). You can also experiment with red onion skins, and beets for pink. Next year we may try using dried flowers like marigolds, coreopsis, and some other traditional dye sources, like cochineal. I expanded the palette I had to work with by shifting the pH of my red cabbage dye by adding vinegar to one jar, baking soda to another, and leaving a third jar of dye plain. The compound in red cabbage which provides its colour is called an anthocyanin, and it is sensitive to pH. This means that changing the pH of the dye solution will change the colour: an acidic solution will appear pink, while a basic solution will appear blue. Unmodified, the red cabbage dye appears purple. Strictly speaking, red cabbage is not considered a true dye, as this colour compound, anthocyanin, is not very stable, and is liable to fade and shift to grey over time! In the end all of my eggs in the cabbage dye came out different shades of blue, because eggshells are made almost entirely of calcium carbonate, which is itself strongly basic. This means all my cabbage dyes were shifted to blue/basic by the eggs themselves! Still, the range of blues are quite pretty, and notably the dye with the vinegar came out strongest/darkest. I also expanded my palette by mixing the dyes together, notably the onion skin dye and cabbage dye, which made an earthy olive brown colour.
Here’s how I made the various dyes…
Red cabbage: Roughly chop 1/2 small red cabbage, and just submerge it in water in a saucepan - you want to use as little water as possible here, to make the dye super concentrated. Gently simmer for about an hour or longer, till the water is deeply coloured and the cabbage pieces look like the colour has been leached out. For all dyes, avoid boiling, as the brightest colours tend to come from dye that hasn’t been excessively heated. Once you’re happy with the dye, strain the mixture and decant into three jars. To shift the colour, add 1 tsp vinegar to one jar, and 1 tsp baking soda to another. Leave one jar plain.
Onion skin: Collect the loose skin from a bag of onions, and peel off as much of the outer onion skin as you can, without leaving your onions completely ‘naked.’ Tear the onion skin into smallish pieces, and just submerge in water in a small saucepan. I tried to measure the amount of water for each dye by filling the jar I intended to use to hold the dye… this way I didn’t end up with extra dye, and I ensured my dye was as concentrated as possible! Simmer for about an hour, but don’t allow it to boil aggressively, then strain.
Nettle tea: I boiled my kettle, then after it was off the boil for a couple minutes, I poured the hot water over one nettle tea bag in a small mason jar. I find that nettle becomes darker and more concentrated when it is left to oxidize, so I left this jar open on my counter for several hours. I left the tea bag in when I finally put it in the fridge with the egg in it!
Turmeric: Like the nettle dye, I used recently boiled water poured over about 1/2-1 tsp of ground turmeric in a glass jar. I let this sit on my counter, and stirred frequently to agitate the sediment.
When it comes to dyeing the eggs, you can opt to either do a hot dye bath which will hard boil your eggs, or a cold dye bath which will keep them raw. I opted to do the cold bath, but to boil them, simply add your prepared eggs to the dye saucepans and simmer for 10-20 minutes or until your preferred colour is achieved. Store in the fridge when not displaying, and feel free to make an egg salad when Easter comes to an end!
I chose to do a cold dye bath for a few reasons: It requires fewer saucepans and smaller quantities of dye (you need less dye to submerge an egg in a small mason jar than you do in a saucepan), and because I plan to blow out my eggs to keep them for next year! So why hollow my eggs after dyeing, and not before? Fresh eggs will easily stay submerged in dye, but hollow eggs will either float or fill with dye, which can be annoying to empty, and again, requires more dye than simply covering a fresh egg.
If you’re going to use a cold dye bath, fill your jars 3/4 full with your prepared dyes (the dye can be warm), then pop in your eggs! Store in the fridge, and check after 12-24 hours. I was happy with the colour of the cabbage and onion dyes after this amount of time, but I left the turmeric and nettle tea dyed eggs in their dye for about 48 hours. When your eggs are done, gently untie the pantyhose, and lightly rinse under cool water. Gently pat dry with a paper towel or soft cloth, and place them in an egg carton or on another stable surface to dry. Store in the fridge, or blow them out to keep forever!
Sources & Inspiration: Our initial inspiration for dyeing eggs with natural homemade dyes came from Louise Upshall of Gumnut Magic; see her ISO Dye Club for details. The tradition of decorating and celebrating eggs in spring is thousands of years old, and can be found across multiple religious traditions. Specifically, dyeing eggs with onion skins and other vegetable dyes for Easter, and using flowers and leaves to create patterns on the eggs is associated with various Eastern European Christian traditions; this process is particularly attributed to Greek, Hungarian, Polish, and Ukranian Easter eggs (among others!). Ukrainian Pysanky batik eggs also enjoy a rich history and are widely celebrated. I found this Wikipedia article on the history of Easter eggs and their meaning quite interesting!