Natural Dye Calculator

Unlike synthetic dyes, natural dye sources vary enormously in strength, so this calculator scales plant material off a ratio you choose rather than a fixed percentage: fiber weight × a dye-source ratio (plant weight to fiber weight) × a color-depth multiplier. The dye-source ratio reflects how much colorant a plant actually holds — strong dyes like madder or weld need roughly equal or double the fiber's weight in plant matter, while weaker dyes like avocado skins or eucalyptus leaves can need three to six times as much to reach the same visual depth. The depth multiplier then scales that base amount for how saturated you want the final color: 0.5× for a pastel, 1.0× for medium, up to 2.0× for a dark, saturated shade.

Two separate water figures follow from that plant material weight and from the fiber weight independently — a soak/extraction volume (for simmering the dye out of the plant material) and a dye bath volume (for immersing the mordanted fiber once the extract is strained in), because these are genuinely separate vessels and volumes in the actual dyeing process. The calculator also estimates simmer time, scaling linearly from a 30-minute baseline for pastel shades up toward 90+ minutes for the darkest, most concentrated dyebaths — since darker colors require longer heat exposure to extract and exhaust more colorant onto the fiber. Keep in mind this is a starting-point ratio, not a guarantee of a specific shade: plant freshness, water hardness, and fiber type (protein vs. cellulose) all shift how much color actually develops, so testing a small swatch first is worthwhile before committing a full batch of fiber.