DIY Natural Easter Egg Dying
After exploring the wonderful world of Turmeric and all of its amazing properties last week, we got stuck on one of its side notes – its use as a natural dye.
So, with Easter quickly hopping around the corner, we thought we’d give natural egg dying a try. We found a helpful, basic guide to naturally dying eggs and which plants and substances produced which colors.
Naturally dying Easter eggs is pretty straightforward with just a little more prep work than the egg dying tablets you plop in vinegar.
We decided to try three colors – Green, Pink and Gold. These options were pretty much determined by what was hanging around the house.
> Green: Fresh Spinach.
> Pink: We were at the bottom of a jar of pickled beets, so we repurposed the juice.
> Gold: Turmeric powder was hanging out in the cupboard.
In addition to the ingredients for whatever color you want to pursue, you’ll need white vinegar and water plus a few basic kitchen tools!
Here’s what we did to dye the eggs:
> Green: We chopped up the spinach a little, covered it with an inch of water, brought it to a boil then reduced to a simmer for 40 minutes. It was then strained and half a cup of the strained spinach water was added to a jar with 3 teaspoons of white vinegar.
> Pink: Our pink natural dye was the easiest. We simply poured one half cup of juice from a jar of pickled beets into a jar with 3 teaspoons of white vinegar. Letting the egg sit in the pickled beet juice for about 10 to 15 minutes produced a nice pink hue.
> Yellow: We took a small saucepan, added a heaping tablespoon of turmeric powder and one cup of water, brought it to a boil then simmered it for 15 minutes. We then strained the liquid through a coffee filter and took one half cup of the liquid and added 3 teaspoons of white vinegar in a jelly jar. The egg sat for 10 minutes or so and produced a nice bright yellow.
We let the eggs dry on a rack over a plate then transferred to the fridge!
Here’s how the Easter eggs turned out…
As you can see, the spinach didn’t do much in terms of dying the egg green. Perhaps we had too much water and not enough spinach in our ratio or maybe we didn’t boil it long enough, but either way, not great results.
Both the pickled beet juice and the turmeric produced nice color that we were pleased with, plus, the prep time was much shorter than the spinach.
NOTE! Both the turmeric water and the pickled beet juice will stain! So be careful with your clothes, etc.
The dying preparation and process is definitely a little longer than the tablet dying form, so if you’re attempting this diy natural egg dying with youngsters, it’s probably better for older kids who might have a little more patience with the process.
Other natural dyes you can try include coffee, tea (Red Zinger and others), carrots, blueberries, red onions and quite a few more. For more colors and instructions, check out these instructions.