Beauty in Discovery: 
An Easter Eggsperiment

Sometimes we have to find a new way,

 which may really be an old way,

to do something that's been done for many centuries,

something that has been done in many, many different ways

to celebrate new life and new hope,

oh! the fun springtime activity of dying Easter eggs!

Meet my chickens: Joe, Morgee, Moe, and Jenner.

My hens lay brown eggs in

so many beautiful shades, and one is speckled.

I have no Easter egg dye. Hmmm, what to do?

Did you know that many of the plants we eat and that grow around us can be transformed into natural dyes? Spices like turmeric, drinks like teas and coffee, juice from berries, and boiled vegetables can all be used to dye eggs, paper, cloth, and more. 

I decided to use roselle tea leftover from the Fall, purple cabbage currently growing in my garden, Spanish needle flowers- sometimes referred to as weeds, and brown onion skins from my pantry to dye my brown eggs.  

Oh yes, this is an experiment. Experiments test a hypothesis, predicted answer to a question. What were my questions? I had three wonderments, three things I hoped to find out:

• Will natural dye show up on my brown eggs?
• Is it true that vinegar is needed for natural dye to color eggs?
• Since roselle and cabbage change color when the acidity is lowered with baking soda, will this result in more Easter egg dye colors?

My predicted answer to my questions, my three "hypotheses:"

• Natural dye will not make much of a difference in color on my brown eggs.
• Vinegar is not necessary 
• Since roselle and cabbage change color when baking soda is added and not vinegar, this will result in more dye colors.

How you can make naturally dyed eggs:

1. With the supervision of an adult, simmer the plant material in water on the stove. The more plant material in the water, the more color the dye will have. Observe the dye to decide when it has simmered long enough. Some plant dye will go from purple or green to brown if over boiled. 

• For roselle, I used frozen peels from seed pods. Zinger Tea can also be used.
• For purple cabbage, I only used the tough stems and insect nibbled leaves, so I could add the rest to my stew.
• For onion, I only used the brown papery skins, so the onion can still be used for food.
• For Spanish Needle, I used the flowers and was sure to leave plenty of flowers for the bees.

2. After straining the plant material from the colored water, add vinegar to the dye. Apparently dye adheres better to eggs in a solution that is acidic. Let cool.

Sidenote: I got curious. I know baking soda changes the color of both roselle and purple cabbage, so I made a jar with vinegar and with baking soda for each. What can I say, I was raised by a scientist. 

3. You can use crayons to draw designs on the hard-boiled eggs. We tied a couple of eggs in the mesh bag the onions came in, adding leaves to one- hoping for a cool design.

4. Place hard-boiled eggs in cooled natural dye. We let ours soak for more than an hour, which caused some color to flake off the eggs that were in the very acidic roselle dye. Experiment. Longer may not be better, as I learned.

See how my brown eggs turned out.

Let's take a closer look.

The purple cabbage dye with vinegar had a red color and the dye with baking soda was green. Interestingly the vinegar cabbage dye changes the eggs to a greenish color, whereas the baking soda cabbage dye did not change the color of the eggs at all.

The roselle dye with vinegar was also red, and the roselle with baking soda was green. When I added the baking soda to the roselle dye it bubbled and fizzed. Wow, that was cool. The eggs came out of the vinegar roselle dye with darker green hues with bits of color flaked off.  I wonder if that dye was too acidic. Unlike the cabbage baking soda dye, the roselle dye with baking soda did dye the eggs a green color and did not damage the shell. Hmmmm. I wonder why?

An interesting observation of the brown onion skin dye and the Spanish needle flower dye, they were both orange before I added the vinegar. After adding the vinegar, the Spanish needle flower dye turned yellow. That was a fun surprise. Both dyes added an orange color to the eggs, but to me the onion skin dye was the most beautiful with the variation in rusty hues.

What a fun Easter "Eggsperiment!"

See what cool dyes you can create from plants.

Enjoy the process and keep an open mind about the outcome.

Use the link below to download a worksheet to record information about your natural dye "eggsperiment."

Natural Dye Eggsperiment Worksheet