Batik is one of the oldest means of embellishing fabrics. Although this is often molten wax, it may also be any other dye proof substance like starch, clay and paste. Efforts have been directed towards developing techniques, easy to understand, easy to apply, ecofriendly and involving use of easily available materials. Out of the tried resist pastes, plaster of paris (POP) results were found to be the best so further experimentation was done with plaster of paris. Experiments were done to see the performance of plaster of paris by varying the thickness of layer, single/double side application, immersion time and to select the consistency of the paste. It was found that there was no effect of time of immersion on resist effect and 5:4 consistencies was found to be the best. The resist effect of double side application was found to be more satisfactory and the medium thickness of resist layer was found to be a wiser choice. Thus, it was concluded that resist paste was cheaper, safer to use, easier to apply and remove than wax so it can be used in small scale industries in rural areas to empower the rural people

Keyword: Batik; Molten wax; Paris