Don't Try This At Home

Last April, I saw an article in Kiwi Magazine (an eco-mommy mag) about Easter crafts, including DIY egg dye. The idea was to use natural ingredients to make egg dye: blueberries, beets, turmeric, and chlorophyll (i.e., the green stuff in plants) capsules. The result (at least according to the photo) should be these beautiful, earthy, subdued-hued Easter eggs. It sounded easy enough and the colors looked so lovely, but I had a 2-year-old and a 4-month-old at the time, so I saved it for this year.

Fast forward to today, feeling like the most devoted of Earth-mamas and Easter being in 5 days, I went for it. I started with 4 colors (pink, blue, green, and yellow), and since each recipe made a biggish batch, I mixed them to make purple and orange. In a moment of motherly foresight, I decided to test out my happy natural dyes while the girls were resting, to make sure they would work before I had a 3-year-old heart set on dyeing eggs with beet juice.

Conclusion: FAIL.*

 *There was one exception that I'll explain below

The biggest disappointment was the pink (beet juice). Beets dye EVERYTHING. They make your pee pink, for crying out loud. I figured 2 seconds in that concoction would yield the most vibrant of pink eggs. Nope. 15 minutes later (after a few checks), I pulled up a lovely magenta egg... that turned pale pukey pink about 15 seconds later as the beet juice ran off.  Boo.  

Next the turmeric/yellow. This one wasn't as bad. The egg was definitely a little yellow, but not as yellow as you'd expect after a 15 minute soak. And really, what are the chances of a pre-schooler waiting 15+ minutes to dye one egg. Not happening.  Not surprisingly, the beet+turmeric combo wasn't so much orange as it was rusty beige... just not much color.

The green was a total failure, but I actually anticipated that. I didn't have any chlorophyll tablets on hand (who does? My MIL maybe...), the Commissary doesn't carry them (no surprise there), and I didn't have time to make a special trip to Whole Foods, but I figured chlorophyll just comes from green leaves so why not make some myself? Enter frozen spinach. Spinach water is always really green, right? Some people even say you should drink it (see Food Rule #26). So I soaked 10 oz of frozen spinach in boiled water for... a while (I wasn't paying attention-- over an hour). Since I was using this homemade method, I decided to soak the egg in it for a while, too, to see if I could really make it work. Again, I don't remember how long, but it was at least 4 hours. 4 hours in dark green juice = greenish-grey egg. Yuck.

The one exception was the blueberry juice. Within minutes, the blueberry dye yielded the loveliest PURPLE eggs ever! Way prettier than fake purple dye, which is usually kind of grey. So this was the one exception. Try this one.

Overall, I wouldn't necessarily throw these recipes out completely. I would just throw them out for using with kids. It's a good bit of work, and takes too long to get even the slightest bit of color. I probably should have realized this when I googled natural egg dyes, looking for a green recipe that didn't include chlorophyll tabs. I figured there would be 1,000 MommyBlogs detailing homemade dyes, but there were practically none. The few articles I saw were from magazines... no home testers. With the advent of Facebook and now Pinterest, you can pretty much bet that any kid-related craft will have been practiced, performed, and blogged by at least a half-dozen semi-famous mommybloggers, and if it's hasn't, well then... 

Now, if you're throwing a party and have some time and want a really earthy, natural theme, this wouldn't be such a bad idea. In fact, I think it would look really nice. But I would suggest making bigger batches of dye and soaking the eggs in them overnight... then you might actually end up with some noticeable colors. For this reason, I'll go ahead and include the "recipes" for the natural dyes below (I'll give the green one from the magazine, but remember that I didn't try that actual recipe).

Otherwise, I figure it's only once a year, and my kids wouldn't dream of touching a hard-boiled egg for any other purpose than to dye it (nor would I... boiled eggs are foul), so I guess I just take my chances with fake dye, at least for now.

DIY Natural Egg Dye

(from Kiwi Magazine, April/May 2011)

Pink

1 15 oz jar beets

1 c. water

1 tsp white vinegar

Bring beets and water to a boil, let simmer for 5 minutes. Pour through colander into a bowl to retain liquid (discard boiled beets). Cool, then stir in vinegar.

***

Yellow

1 Tbsp turmeric

2 c. water

Bring spice and water to a boil. Simmer for 5 minutes. Cool.

***

Green

1 c. water

3 chlorophyll capsules

Bring water to a boil, then remove from heat. Open capsules and stir into water. Cool.

***

Blue

2 c. frozen blueberries

2 c. water

1 tsp white vinegar

Bring blueberries and water to a boil, let simmer for 5 minutes. Pour through colander into a bowl to retain liquid (discard boiled blueberries). Cool, then stir in vinegar.

The raw materials. Notice no organics.  The mere act of making my own dye was crunchy enough for one day.

I felt like a witch with all of my boiling brews.

Oddly, these look much better in this photo than they did in real life. How often does that happen?  Regardless, pretty underwhelming, with the exception of the purple ones... they are just as pretty as they look.