Leather Color Help

[M. Demetrius]

Yellow or White Leather Dye is extremly difficult to use

The modern water/alcohol based dyes were probably not used by the Ancients. They are not very color fast, unless colored by lacquer, and we know that lacquer like we use is a very modern invention. Water-based leather dyes like we buy in the stores today fade like crazy if they get wet, and transfer the color to cloth or other surfaces. Maybe, just maybe, some kind of encaustic coating could be applied that would seal the dye inside, but I have no experience with that.

You're right, Martin, about the white leather being one of the colors produced by the tanning process. The "tan" color we're most used to seeing can come from the in oak bark, and some other vegetable dye methods. Interestingly, the word tan and tanning and tannic acid and tannin are all related directly to leather processing.

I've done a little experimenting with natural dyes used for cloth, and they don't work well with leather. But there are hundreds of dye sources, and perhaps some natural dyes would work with leather, particularly the earth dyes such as ochre. Earth dyes are not usually as bright as our modern eye expects to see.

Yellow? I don't know. Maybe. They did have yellow paint. Maybe scabbards were just painted instead of dyed?