Natural Dye with Kitchen Scraps: Avocado, Onion & More

The Natural Colors Hiding in
Your Kitchen Scraps

Let me start with a little riddle: what do avocado, pomegranate, onion, and hibiscus have in common?

The answer: They all end up in your kitchen as a peel, a pit, or a handful of petals, the part we usually set aside without a second thought. And that is exactly where the magic hides: blush pink, golden amber, mossy green-yellow, and dusty lavender.

And yes, these colors can dye your clothes! And the best part? You can do it at home, with a pot and a little patience.

Where it all began: a faded orange swatch

This is how I started dyeing, too.

It was during the pandemic, while I was studying fashion. One of my teachers shared an old recipe from her mother: dyeing with coffee and carrots. I still remember my first carrot swatch. It was a very pale orange, almost washed out. And to me, it was more than beautiful: it was a revelation.

That little piece of cotton held more than color. It held the power of nature, and the answer to a question I had carried with me for a long time: how do we make fashion without harming the planet?
Everything was right there, in a scrap of cotton dyed a faded orange.

The four colors

Avocado: the surprise of blush pink

Avocado is the one that makes everyone gasp. You'd expect green, or maybe brown. But the tannins contained in the pits and peels of an avocado give soft, peachy-pink tones. A tone that charms everyone 🥑

Hand-dyed fabric using natural dye avocado pits and peels bath — plant-based pigments on natural textile — Florilegium Paris

Onion: golden amber from the humblest skin

Onion skins are the most generous teacher I know. Yellow onions give golden, amber tones, and red onions lean toward warm, russet shades. They're also rich in natural tannins, which makes them wonderfully forgiving for beginners 🧅

Two whole onions, one pale yellow onion and one dark red onion, arranged on a textured patchwork background of yellow and beige fabrics naturally dyed with onion skin dye.

Pomegranate: mossy greens and a story of tannin

Pomegranate rinds are full of tannins. People have used them for centuries, both as a source of yellow and as a helper that makes other colors hold. On their own they give soft yellows. Add a touch of iron and they deepen into mossy, olive-leaning greens.

A whole red pomegranate placed on a patchwork-style fabric naturally dyes with pomegranate peels color yellow green

Hibiscus: dusty lavender, handled with tenderness

Hibiscus is the most poetic of the four, and the most temperamental. Its color comes from anthocyanins, pigments that shift with acidity. Depending on your water, your fabric, and what you add, the same petals can give pink, purple, lavender, or even gray. A fun game to play is switching the colors with some drops of lemon or with some soda ash 🌺

From one swatch to many hands

Today, I want to share what I've learned in more than seven years of experiments, failures, successes, and many colors. I've gathered it all in A Florilegium of Kitchen Scraps, my new step-by-step digital guide.

That way, the message of my faded orange swatch finds an echo. It is no longer just me dyeing at home. It is everyone who wants to learn alongside me. That feels powerful to me, and it is the heart of Florilegium Paris.