How to Distinguish Real Handmade Balinese Batik from Its Fake Printed Counterpart

When you want to buy Balinese fabric or Batik Bali, you want to make sure that the souvenir that you buy is a genuine one. To avoid the scams when buying a Balinese batik fabric, you should consider the following five factors.

Description

Before you make a judgment that a piece of batik fabric is either real or fake, you should know what it means with a piece of genuine batik fabric. Generally, genuine batik fabrics are the handmade ones whereas those that are considered fakes are mass-produced using printing methods. Nonetheless, you should take this description for granted because a vendor who tells you clearly that the product that they sell is printed batik cannot be considered a scammer. You are dealing with the scam when a vendor calls a printed batik fabric a handmade one.

Odor

Now, to distinguish a real handmade Balinese batik fabric from a fake one, you should smell the fabric. A piece of printed fabric has a strong—rather pungent—textile odor. If you sense any chemicals in the fabric that you smell, you can call it a fake. Real Balinese batik uses all-natural coloring agents and wax, so the aroma that you sense should be mild and quite similar to that of a burnt candle. When you attend a batik class, you should be familiar with the aroma of genuine Balinese batik. 

Ink

When you visit any batik Denpasar shops as well as other shops in other locations to buy Balinese batik, check both sides of the fabric. The ink of genuine batik should go through the other side of the fabric. In other words. Both sides of the fabric that you want to buy must show clearly visible patterns, though the rear side generally appears paler than the front side. If the rear side of the fabric shows nothing, you can call it a fake. 

Pattern

Human’s hands cannot be 100% perfect. Because real Balinese batik is handmade, you should expect some irregularities in the patterns and accents of a genuine fabric. A similar image or accent may have slightly different sizes and shapes in different parts of the fabric. If the patterns and accents appear regular, neat, and symmetrical, the fabric may not be genuine.

Price

Price can be a determining factor to decide whether a batik fabric is real or fake. Real batik should be quite expensive, with a price that ranges from around 200,000 IDR to more than a million IDR. If the batik that you buy is unusually cheap, it may be a fake.