Frequently asked questions
Our silk ribbons are cut on the ‘cross’ (also known as ‘on the bias’). This means they are cut at a 45 degree angle from the straight edge of the fabric. Cutting on the bias gives fabric an unparalleled drape and fluidity, and cut edges don’t unravel. In order to create a continuous length, small inconspicuous seams, sewed carefully with silk thread, appear approximately every 1.5 m.
Your ribbons are colourfast, and can be gently hand washed. Use warm water and a pH neutral soap if necessary (such as a natural woolwash). Chemicals of any kind can alter the colour of your ribbon! This includes soaps, fabric conditioners, ironing sprays and plant food! Please dry the stems of any bouquets carefully before wrapping with your ribbons.
Colours should not run, but particularly dark colours can rub off slightly under pressure, so be careful of white or light-coloured clothing.
Iron on a warm setting, or spritz dry ribbons with water to create a gentle crinkle.
The edges of your ribbon will soften and fray slightly with use and reuse. This trait can be accelerated by vigorous washing or by rubbing the edges with your fingers.
Payment is accepted through PayPal. You do not need a PayPal account to purchase using PayPal.
Australian customers can also pay by direct debit. Banking details are provided in the checkout process. Your direct debit purchase must be processed before your order will be dispatched. This can take several days depending on the banks involved. If your payment will be delayed for any reason, please get in touch!
We endeavour to ensure your purchase is shipped within 2-3 days of receipt of payment. If for any reason there is a delay we will contact you with as much information as possible.
All postage, including international, is through Australia Post. Please contact us if you have any queries about postage, or if your country is not listed.
Your ribbons are hand-wound on to our custom-made spools, wrapped carefully and packaged into a sturdy box for shipping. If your parcel arrives damaged in any way, please document it carefully by taking several photos before opening it. If your items are subsequently damaged in any way, please get in touch immediately.
Domestic shipping
Up to 500g: $9.45 flat rate
Express post up to 500g: $12.20 flat rate
Up to 12 spools of ribbon can be shipped for this price. Orders over this are processed according to weight and destination, and may incur an additional charge.
Please contact me before submitting your order if you require your items in a hurry to ensure they’re dispatched quickly!
Basic tracking is standard with your parcel within Australia.
Delivery within Australia is usually within 5–10 business days. If your parcel has not arrived after that time, please get in touch so we can follow up with the post office to the best of our ability.
International shipping
All international shipping is per Australia Post shipping zones. We endeavour to offer the most cost-effective options. Express services are available, please contact us for a quote. Tracking can also be purchased for an additional cost. Note that these services can be expensive.
Your ribbons are shipped from Brisbane, Australia. International mail may take up to 3 weeks to arrive to most destinations. If you require more information about timeframes to your particular destination, please get in touch.
Tinctifolia cannot accept responsibility for any customs issues, costs, or refusals at entry to your destination. If you are concerned about your country’s customs laws, please investigate before purchase. If a package is returned to us from customs in the original condition, we will of course refund your money.
You are purchasing a completely natural, handmade product. Each ribbon is absolutely unique, and variations in colour and other markings are part of the appeal of the process of natural dyeing, and are not considered flaws. We want you to love your ribbons as much as we have loved making them for you, so please contact us if you are dissatisfied in any way with your order. We can accept returns under some conditions, so please contact us with any concerns.
Colour accuracy
Natural dyeing is a highly variable process, and no two batches of colour are identical. We endeavour to ensure products are photographed in natural light and that colours appear as accurately as possible. Monitors and screens also differ in the way they depict colours, so if colour is particularly important to you, please get in contact so you are happy with the result!
Natural dyeing is not necessarily good for the environment. Some traditional techniques and chemicals are toxic, and the process uses a lot of water. Modern techniques, however, have made a sustainable, environmentally friendly practice possible.
No toxic chemicals of any kind are used in preparing your ribbons. We recycle water as much as possible, and everything eventually goes on the garden. Dye materials are grown by us, foraged (legally and sustainably!) from the local area, or sourced from reputable suppliers. Our ribbon spools are made exclusively for us in Australia from local FSC-approved plantation pine. Printed materials are sourced under the highest environmental standards available in Australia. All our packaging is recycled and recyclable, even the packing tape and natural cellophane.
We collect only the minimum information needed to process your order. We will never share any of your information with any third party. If you choose to sign up for our newsletter, you may unsubscribe at any time. You may request your data be removed from our databases at any time.
A number of plugins on this site collect anonymous information for statistical purposes. The information collected and purpose of this information is detailed below.
Contact Form
Data Used: Akismet is enabled on the site, therefore the contact form submission data — IP address, user agent, name, email address, website, and message — is submitted to the Akismet service (also owned by Automattic) for the sole purpose of spam checking. The actual submission data is stored in the database of the site on which it was submitted and is emailed directly to the owner of the form (i.e. the site author who published the page on which the contact form resides). This email will include the submitter’s IP address, timestamp, name, email address, website, and message.
Data Synced (?): Post and post meta data associated with a user’s contact form submission. Akismet is enabled on the site, therefore the IP address and user agent originally submitted with the comment are synced, as well, as they are stored in post meta.
Google Analytics
Data Used: Please refer to the appropriate Google Analytics documentation for the specific type of data it collects. For sites running WooCommerce (also owned by Automattic) and this feature simultaneously and having all purchase tracking explicitly enabled, purchase events will send Google Analytics the following information: order number, product id and name, product category, total cost, and quantity of items purchased. Google Analytics does offer IP anonymization, which can be enabled by the site owner.
Activity Tracked: This feature sends page view events (and potentially video play events) over to Google Analytics for consumption. For sites running WooCommerce-powered stores, some additional events are also sent to Google Analytics: shopping cart additions and removals, product listing views and clicks, product detail views, and purchases. Tracking for each specific WooCommerce event needs to be enabled by the site owner.
Infinite Scroll
Data Used: In order to record page views via WordPress.com Stats (which must be enabled for page view tracking here to work) with additional loads, the following information is used: IP address, WordPress.com user ID (if logged in), WordPress.com username (if logged in), user agent, visiting URL, referring URL, timestamp of event, browser language, country code.
Activity Tracked: Page views will be tracked with each additional load (i.e. when you scroll down to the bottom of the page and a new set of posts loads automatically). If the site owner has enabled Google Analytics to work with this feature, a page view event will also be sent to the appropriate Google Analytics account with each additional load.
Mobile Theme
Data Used: A visitor’s preference on viewing the mobile version of a site.
Activity Tracked: A cookie (akm_mobile) is stored for 3.5 days to remember whether or not a visitor of the site wishes to view its mobile version. Learn more about this cookie.
WordPress.com Stats
Data Used: IP address, WordPress.com user ID (if logged in), WordPress.com username (if logged in), user agent, visiting URL, referring URL, timestamp of event, browser language, country code. Important: The site owner does not have access to any of this information via this feature. For example, a site owner can see that a specific post has 285 views, but he/she cannot see which specific users/accounts viewed that post. Stats logs — containing visitor IP addresses and WordPress.com usernames (if available) — are retained by Automattic for 28 days and are used for the sole purpose of powering this feature.
Activity Tracked: Post and page views, video plays (if videos are hosted by WordPress.com), outbound link clicks, referring URLs and search engine terms, and country. When this module is enabled, Jetpack also tracks performance on each page load that includes the Javascript file used for tracking stats. This is exclusively for aggregate performance tracking across Jetpack sites in order to make sure that our plugin and code is not causing performance issues. This includes the tracking of page load times and resource loading duration (image files, Javascript files, CSS files, etc.). The site owner has the ability to force this feature to honor DNT settings of visitors. By default, DNT is currently not honored.