Kakishibu dyeing I

 

I told you to wear rubber gloves and an overall when you work with Kakishibu (; my post for September 14, 2025). The reason covering ourselves is, the strong tannic acid can remain as a stain when it lands on a fabric. i.e. Kakishibu is very strong natural dye. Just search internet for word “Kakishibu.” You’ll find numerous artists who work with the liquid for their creation of natural dyeing. This week, I begin telling you about my adventure with persimmon tannin for natural dye. Oh, one thing before starting. Kakishibu dyeing can be completed in just one day if you like. But when you take time to dry the dyed fabric before proceeding to the next step, the color can progress into something with depth. The acid reacts with O2. + UV light stimulates the response, which develops the color more. The sunlight makes wonder for Kakishibu dyeing. You can go slow and enjoy how coloring turns as time goes by. As I’m having a hubbub with my PC Topy 5, my dyeing has taken more than one month while I leave the fabric on the clothesline for days. It may be just my imagination, but it seemed to me the color evolved into subtle expression. Actually, the fabric dyed by Kakishibu will be aged for years. It would be one of the attractions the material provides.

The color of my bag when it is dyed
with Kakishibu for the first time.

My Kakishibu-dyed mini-bag,
after about a month of dyeing.
The color, I think, was stabilized in this way.

Let’s start groundwork. Here are the necessary items we need to arrange before dyeing:

1. A bowl made of stainless steel, plastics, or wood. Never made of iron, as before.

2. Kakishibu, available from Amazon et al, or handmade of 3+ years of work.

3. H2O.

4. Fabric to be dyed.

5. Mordant liquid: Alum for the final product with light earth color, or aqueous solution of iron for darker color, more to it below. Rubber gloves, and a work jacket or the like.

A bottle of store-bought Kakishibu.

Unlike the standard natural dyeing, Kakishibu does not

1. Choose fabric. Normally, we need protein-based yarn as wool, or we have to soak vegetable-based fabric, as cotton and linen, in soy milk or the like in order to make the material coated with protein. Kakishibu doesn’t care about such things. We can apply Kakishibu liquid to wood, washi paper and leather as well. Kakishibu applied material becomes “harder” and “more durable.” That’s the reason why samurai warriors applied it to their armor.

2. Require cooking with heat. It is often the case we cook a fabric in boiled staining solution for natural dyeing. No need with Kakishibu. 

So, Kakishibu dyeing is technically easy. It even does not ask mordant. If you like, you can leave the dyed fabric as such without applying mordant. On the other hand, with mordant the change in color becomes slow. Especially for fabric mordant makes the final product softer. (Wood panel applied with Kakishibu does not change its hardness with mordant, I tell you.)

Two colors.
Iron mordant is applied to dark-grey part.

Having said that, applying mordant turns the color of dyed fabric into different hues. When we use alum, the color becomes lighter. With iron, the color of the fabric is blackish gray. If we repeat “dye fabric, then apply mordant” several times, it can make the color in deeper tone. Such protean results are also the attraction of Kakishibu dyeing. For alum mordant, we just use alum powder for kitchen. We dissolve a couple of tablespoonful powder completely in 500ml of hot water, then add 2L of cold water. The alum mordant is ready. Dunk the Kakishibu-dyed and dried fabric for 10 minutes or so in a mordant. Voila, its color turns lighter. For iron mordant, it takes a bit more process to make, but no cooking. Let me explain it next week.

A dyed bag with different hue using alum and iron for mordant.
A person who made it uses die board to make this pattern.

If you find a problem in the greenery of north-half of Yokohama, please make contact with

Office for the Park Greeneries in the North
北部公園緑地事務所
Yokohama Municipal Government Green Environment Bureau
横浜市みどり創造局

Phone: 045-353-1166 

FAX：045-352-3086
email: mk-hokubukoen@city.yokohama.lg.jp