Coconut Water as a Mordan on Natural Dyes Leather Made from Rambutan Skin for Silk Fabrics with Tie Dye Techniques

This research is an experimental research, which aims to know the benefit of coconut water as a mordan to simplify and enlarge the amount of dyestuff absorbed by silk fiber. It also has a function to increase the brightness of the color by using natural dye from rambutan skin with tie dye technique. In this experiment, we used about 500 grams of dried rambutan skin, 5 liters of water extracted into 2 1/2 liters of water, 1 liter of coconut water which has been kept for 24 hours, 500 grams Tawas with 10 litters of water as solvent, and 1 meter of silk fabric. Data were collected by using questionnaire and were given to 30 panelists. The results showed that coconut water can be used as a natural and environmental friendly mordan. There were about 90.83 % of panelist gave very good rate to the color of silk fabric in term of its cloth sheen, sharpness, flatness and cloth shrinkage tolerance. Therefore, the coconut water can be used as an alternative mordan solution and natural dye for textiles.