While some natural dye ingredients may seem odd, their colors saturate Andean textiles and are used by Peruvian artisans.
Peru is a country full of vibrant colors that reflect the unique culture, creativity and energy of its people. People in the Andes Mountains use natural dyes to color wool and alpaca fiber and make handmade textiles to express their culture. These materials are dyed using Andean recipes passed down through generations.
The Andeans use their knowledge of dye plants to create stunning natural colors in their textiles. Boiling the spun yarn with the coloring agent and other fixatives like mineral salts helps hold the color or intensify saturation.
The following are some of the natural ingredients that are used for dyeing wool in the Andes.
Red
The Andes’ most common red dye ingredient is cochineal, a scale insect related to the aphid found in the Sacred Valley. Dry the insect and grind it into powder with a mortar and pestle. With the right fixatives, cochineal can be dyed bright red, pink, or purple.
Orange
Weavers can evoke the color orange by adding citric acid to cochineal-dyed yarn. However, there are other ways to create the same effect. For yarn boiling, yanali bark, a slow-growing tree in high altitudes, is chopped into small pieces. Yanali produces mustard yellow or yellowish-orange, not orange.
Green
There are many different plants and minerals that can be used to produce the color green; however ch’illca is the most common. Ch’illca is a leafy green plant that has white flowers. Mix large bunches of fresh leaves with collpa, a jungle mineral, to create green dye. These two ingredients should be boiled for an hour before adding yarn.
Blue
To achieve the color blue, weavers in the Andes use tara, a bean-like pod. Tara is boiled with the yarn and collpa is added as a fixative to help the color cling to the fibers. The shade that is produced can vary from blue to grey depending on how much material is being dyed and how long it is boiled.
Yellow
To make yellow, there are a number of plants and flowers that can be used, though q’olle flowers are the most common. The flowers are harvested from a small tree that grows in the Andes and are boiled with the yarn. The length of time that the yarn is boiled and remains in the dye solution will determine the shade of yellow that is achieved.
Neutral Colors and Black
Sheep and Andean camelids like alpacas produce plenty of neutral wool for textiles. These colors include white, gray, tan, black, brown, and beige in various tones. An undyed yard is often the best natural color and doesn’t need dyes, but some coloring agents can turn white yarn brown or black. Undyed fiber is usually used to make natural colored yarn. As a natural detergent, the jabonera plant removes dirt and impurities for clean color.
After dyeing, the yarns are rinsed to stop bleeding color and hung to dry before making beautiful weavings. Due to the popularity and convenience of synthetic dyes, naturally dyed products are less common in Peruvian markets and tourist shops. Thank goodness the recent demand for natural, handmade products is preserving Andean indigenous dyeing and weaving traditions.
Peru’s culture and traditions make it great, and we know that. We will always encourage our guests to buy items that celebrate Peruvian culture and values. While handmade and naturally dyed Peruvian fabrics are the best souvenirs, they do tend to be pricier.
If you’re visiting Peru, we’ll recommend some of our favorite shops for buying high-quality textiles!
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