Natural dye
Encyclopedia
Natural dyes are dyes or colorants derived from plant
s, invertebrate
s, or mineral
s. The majority of natural dyes are vegetable dyes from plant sources – root
s, berries
, bark
, leaves
, and wood
— and other organic sources such as fungi and lichen
s.
Archaeologists have found evidence of textile
dyeing
dating back to the Neolithic
period. In China, dyeing with plants, barks and insects has been traced back more than 5,000 years. The essential process of dyeing changed FUNNY LOOKIN POTATO :D Typically, the dye material is put in a pot of water and then the textiles to be dyed are added to the pot, which is heated and stirred until the color is transferred. Textile fiber may be dyed before spinning
(dyed in the wool), but most textiles are yarn
-dyed or piece-dyed after weaving
. Many natural dyes require the use of chemicals called mordant
s to bind the dye to the textile fibers; tannin
from oak galls, salt, natural alum
, vinegar
, and ammonia
from stale urine
were used by early dyers. Many mordants, and some dyes themselves, produce strong odors, and large-scale dyeworks were often isolated in their own districts.
Throughout history, people have dyed their textiles using common, locally available materials, but scarce dyestuffs that produced brilliant and permanent colors such as the natural invertebrate dyes Tyrian purple
and crimson kermes
became highly prized luxury items in the ancient and medieval world. Plant-based dyes such as woad, indigo
, saffron
, and madder
were raised commercially and were important trade goods in the economies of Asia and Europe. Across Asia and Africa, patterned fabrics were produced using resist dyeing
techniques to control the absorption of color in piece-dyed cloth. Dyes from the New World
such as cochineal
and logwood were brought to Europe by the Spanish
treasure fleets, and the dyestuffs of Europe were carried by colonists to America.
The discovery of man-made synthetic dye
s in the mid-19th century triggered a long decline in the large-scale market for natural dyes. Synthetic dyes, which could be produced in large quantities, quickly superseded natural dyes for the commercial textile production enabled by the industrial revolution
, and unlike natural dyes, were suitable for the synthetic fibers that followed. Artists of the Arts and Crafts Movement
preferred the pure shades and subtle variability of natural dyes, which mellow with age but preserve their true colors, unlike early synthetic dyes, and helped ensure that the old European techniques for dyeing and printing with natural dyestuffs were preserved for use by home and craft
dyers. Natural dyeing techniques are also preserved by artisans in traditional cultures around the world.
In the early 21st century, the market for natural dyes in the fashion industry is experiencing a resurgence. Western consumers have become more concerned about the health and environmental impact of synthetic dyes in manufacturing and there is a growing demand for products that use natural dyes. The European Union, for example, has encouraged Indonesian batik cloth producers to switch to natural dyes to improve their export market in Europe.
Cellulose fibres require fibre-reactive, direct/substantive, and vat dyes, which are colourless, soluble dyes fixed by light and/or oxygen. Protein fibres require vat, acid, or indirect/mordant dyes, that require a bonding agent. Each synthetic fibre requires its own dyeing method, for example, nylon requires acid, disperse and pigment dyes, rayon acetate requires disperse dyes, and so on. The types of natural dyes currently in use by the global fashion industry include:
Animal:
Plant:
Mineral:
to the Bronze Age
across the Levant
, Egypt
, Mesopotamia
and Europe
, followed by evidence of blues and then yellows, with green appearing somewhat later. The earliest surviving evidence of textile dyeing was found at the large Neolithic
settlement at Çatalhöyük
in southern Anatolia
, where traces of red dyes, possible from ochre
(iron oxide
pigment
s from clay
), were found. Polychrome or multicolored fabrics seem to have been developed in the 3rd or 2nd millennium BCE. Textiles with a "red-brown warp
and an ochre-yellow weft
" were discovered in Egyptian pyramids of the Sixth Dynasty (2345-2180 BCE).
The chemical analysis that would definitively identify the dyes used in ancient textiles has rarely been conducted, and even when a dye such as indigo blue is detected it is impossible to determine which of several indigo-bearing plants was used. Nevertheless, based on the colors of surviving textile fragments and the evidence of actual dyestuffs found in archaeological sites, reds, blues, and yellows from plant sources were in common use by the late Bronze Age and Iron Age
.
for an extended period, often measured in days or even weeks, stirring occasionally until the color has evenly transferred to the textiles.
Some dyestuffs, such as indigo
and lichen
s, will give good color when used alone; these dyes are called direct dyes or substantive dye
s. The majority of plant dyes, however, also require the use of a mordant
, a chemical used to "fix" the color in the textile fibers. These dyes are called adjective dyes. By using different mordants, dyers can often obtain a variety of colors and shades from the same dye. Fibers or cloth may be pretreated with mordants, or the mordant may be incorporated in the dyebath. In traditional dyeing, the common mordants are vinegar
, tannin
from oak
bark, sumac
, or oak galls, ammonia
from stale urine, and wood-ash liquor or potash
(potassium carbonate
) made by leaching
wood ashes and evaporating the solution.
Salt helps to "fix" or increase "fastness" of colors, vinegar improves reds and purples, and the ammonia
in stale urine assists in the fermentation of indigo dyes.
Natural alum (aluminum sulfate) is the most common metallic salt mordant, but tin (stannous chloride
), copper (cupric sulfate), iron (ferrous sulfate
, called copperas) and chrome (potassium dichromate) are also used. Iron mordants "sadden" colors, while tin and chrome mordants brighten colors. Additional chemicals or alterants may be applied after dying to further alter or reinforce the colors.
Textiles may be dyed as raw fiber (dyed in the fleece or dyed in the wool), as spun
yarn
(dyed in the hank or yarn-dyed), or after weaving
(piece-dyed). Mordants often leave residue in wool fiber that makes it difficult to spin, so wool was generally dyed after spinning, as yarn or woven cloth. Indigo, however, requires no mordant, and cloth manufacturers in medieval England often dyed wool in the fleece with the indigo-bearing plant woad and then dyed the cloth again after weaving to produce deep blues, browns, reds, purples, blacks, and tawnies.
In China, Japan, India, Pakistan
, Nigeria
, Gambia, and other parts of West Africa
and southeast Asia
, patterned silk and cotton fabrics were produced using resist dyeing
techniques in which the cloth is printed
or stencil
ed with starch
or wax
, or tied in various ways to prevent even penetration of the dye when the cloth is piece-dyed. Chinese ladao is dated to the 10th century; other traditional techniques include tie-dye
, batik
, Rōketsuzome
, katazome
, bandhani and leheria
.
The mordants used in dyeing and many dyestuffs themselves give off strong and unpleasant odors, and the actual process of dyeing requires a good supply of fresh water, storage areas for bulky plant materials, vats which can be kept heated (often for days or weeks), and airy spaces to dry the dyed textiles. Ancient large-scale dye-works tend to be located on the outskirts of populated areas, on windy promontories.
s, henna
, alkanet or dyer's bugloss (Alkanna tinctoria), asafoetida
and madder
. Madder (Rubia tinctorum
) and related plants of the Rubia family are native to many temperate zones around the world, and have been used as a source of good red dye (rose madder
) since prehistory. Madder has been identified on linen
in the tomb of Tutankhamun
, and Pliny the Elder
records madder growing near Rome. Madder was a dye of commercial importance in Europe, being cultivated in Holland and France to dye the red coats
of military uniforms until the market collapsed following the development of synthetic alizarin
dye in 1869. Madder was also used to dye the "hunting pinks" of Great Britain.
Turkey red was a strong, very fast red dye for cotton obtained from madder root via a complicated multistep process involving "sumac
and oak galls, calf's blood, sheep's dung, oil, soda, alum, and a solution of tin." Turkey red was developed in India and spread to Turkey. Greek workers familiar with the methods of its production were brought to France in 1747, and Dutch and English spies soon discovered the secret. A sanitized version of Turkey red was being produced in Manchester by 1784, and roller-printed dress cottons with a Turkey red ground were fashionable in England by the 1820s.
Munjeet or Indian madder (Rubia cordifolia) is native to the Himalayas and other mountains of Asia and Japan. Munjeet was an important dye for the Asian cotton industry and is still used by craft dyers in Nepal.
Puccoon or bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis) is a popular red dye among Southeastern Native American basketweavers. Choctaw
basketweavers additionally use sumac
for red dye. Coushatta
s artists from Texas and Louisiana used the water oak
(Quercus nigra L.) to produce red.
A delicate rose color in Navajo rug
s comes from fermented prickly pear cactus fruit, Opuntia polycantha. Navajo weavers also use rainwater and red dirt to create salmon-pink dyes.
, Navajo tea, Thelesperma gracile, or alder
bark.
, pomegranate
rind, turmeric
, safflower
, onion
skins, and a number of weedy flowering plants. There is limited evidence of the use of weld (Reseda luteola), also called mignonette or dyer's rocket before the Iron Age, but it was an important dye of the ancient Mediterranean and Europe, and is indigenous to England. Two brilliant yellow dyes of commercial importance in Europe from the 18th century are derived from trees of the Americas
: quercitron
from the inner bark of oak
s native to North America and fustic from the dyer's mulberry tree (Maclura tinctoria) of the West Indies and Mexico
.
In rivercane basketweaving among Southeastern tribes
, butternut (Juglans cinerea) and yellow root (Xanthorhiza simplicissima) provide a rich yellow color. Chitimacha
basket weavers have a complex formula for yellow that employs a dock plant (most likely Rumex crispus) for yellow. Navajo artists create yellow dyes from small snake-weed
and brown onion skins, and rubber plant
(Parthenium incanum
). Rabbitbush
(Chrysothamnus
) and rose hip
s produce pale, yellow-cream colored dyes.
and Early Modern
England was especially known for its green dyes. The dyers of Lincoln
, a great cloth town in the high Middle Ages
, produced the Lincoln green
cloth associated with Robin Hood
by dyeing wool with woad and then overdyeing it yellow with weld or dyer's greenweed (Genista tinctoria
), also known as dyer's broom. Woolen cloth mordanted with alum and dyed yellow with dyer's greenweed was overdyed with woad and, later, indigo, to produce the once-famous Kendal green. This in turn fell out of fashion in the 18th century in favor of the brighter Saxon green, dyed with indigo and fustic.
Soft olive greens are also achieved when textiles dyed yellow are treated with an iron mordant. The dull green cloth common to the Iron Age Halstatt culture shows traces of iron, and was possibly colored by boiling yellow-dyed cloth in an iron pot. Indigenous peoples of the Northwest Plateau in North America used lichen to dye corn husk bags a beautiful sea green.
Navajo textile artist Nonabah Gorman Bryan developed a two-step process for creating green dye. First the Churro wool yarn is dyed yellow with sagebrush
, Artemisia tridentata
, and then it is soaked in black dye afterbath. Red onion skins are also used by Navajo dyers to produce green.
-bearing plants, primarily those in the genus Indigofera
, which are native to the tropics
. The primary commercial indigo
species in Asia was true indigo (Indigofera tinctoria
). India
is believed to be the oldest center of indigo dyeing in the Old World. It was a primary supplier of indigo dye to Europe as early as the Greco-Roman era. The association of India with indigo is reflected in the Greek
word for the dye, which was indikon (ινδικόν). The Romans
used the term indicum, which passed into Italian dialect and eventually into English as the word indigo.
In Central
and South America
, the important blue dyes were Añil (Indigofera suffruticosa) and Natal indigo (Indigofera arrecta).
In temperate climates including Europe, indigo was obtained primarily from woad (Isatis tinctoria), an indigenous plant of Assyria
and the Levant
which has been grown in Northern Europe over 2,000 years, although from the 18th century it was mostly replaced by superior Indian indigo imported by the British East India Company
. Woad was carried to New England
in the 17th century and used extensively in America until native stands of indigo were discovered in Florida and the Carolinas. In Sumatra
, indigo dye is extracted from some species of Marsdenia
. Other indigo-bearing dye plants include dyer's knotweed (Polygonum tinctorum
) from Japan and the coasts of China, and the West African shrub Lonchocarpus cyanescens.
Europe, purple, violet, murrey
and similar colors were produced by dyeing wool with woad or indigo in the fleece and then piece-dyeing the woven cloth with red dyes, either the common madder or the luxury dyes kermes
and cochineal
. Madder could also produce purples when used with alum. Brazilwood
also gave purple shades with vitriol (sulfuric acid
) or potash.
Choctaw artists traditionally used maple (Acer sp.) to create lavender and purple dyes. Purples can also be derived from lichen
s, and from the berries of White Bryony
from the northern Rocky Mountain states and mulberry (morus nigra) (with an acid mordant).
is an ancient brown dye from the wood of acacia trees, particularly Acacia catechu
, used in India for dyeing cotton
. Cutch gives gray-browns with an iron mordant and olive-browns with copper.
Black walnut
(Juglans nigra) is used by Cherokee artists to produce a deep brown approaching black. Today black walnut is primarily used to dye baskets but has been used in the past for fabrics and deerhide. Juniper, Juniperus monosperma
, ashes provide brown and yellow dyes for Navajo people
, as do the hulls of wild walnuts (Juglans major
).
mixed with pitch from the piñon tree (Pinus edulis) and the three-leaved sumac (Rhus trilobata
). They also produce a cool grey dye with blue flower lupin
e and a warm grey from Juniper mistletoe (Phoradendron juniperinum
).
produce a wide range of greens, oranges, yellows, reds, browns, and bright pinks and purples. The lichen Rocella tinctoria was found along the Mediterranean Sea and was used by the ancient Phoenicia
ns. In recent times, lichen dyes have been an important part of the dye traditions of Wales
, Ireland
, Scotland
, and among native peoples of the southwest and Intermontane Plateaus
of the United States
. Scottish lichen dyes
include cudbear (also called archil
in England and litmus
in Holland), and crottle.
, pioneered research into using various mushrooms for natural dyes. She discovered mushroom dye
s for a complete rainbow palette. Swedish and American mycologists, building upon Rice's research, have discovered sources for true blues (Sarcodon squamosus
) and mossy greens (Hydnellum geogenium). Hypholoma fasciculare
provides a yellow dye, and fungi such as Phaeolus schweinitzii
and Pisolithus tinctorius
are used in dying textiles and paper.
From the second millennium BCE to the 19th century, a succession of rare and expensive natural dyestuffs came in and out of fashion in the ancient world and then in Europe. In many cases the cost of these dyes far exceeded the cost of the wools and silks they colored, and often only the finest grades of fabrics were considered worthy of the best dyes.
or royal purple, a purple-red dye which is extracted from several genera of sea snail
s, primarily the spiny dye-murex Murex brandaris (currently known as Bolinus brandaris). Murex dye was greatly prized in antiquity because it did not fade, but instead became brighter and more intense with weathering and sunlight. Murex dyeing may have been developed first by the Minoan
s of East Crete or the West Semites along the Levant
ine coast, and heaps of crushed murex shells have been discovered at a number of locations along the eastern Mediterranean dated to the mid-2nd millennium BCE. The classical dye known as Phoenician Red was also derived from murex snails.
Murex dyes were fabulously expensive - one snail yields but a single drop of dye - and the Roman Empire
imposed a strict monopoly on their use from the reign of Alexander Severus
(225–235 CE) that was maintained by the succeeding Byzantine Empire
until the Early Middle Ages
. The dye was used for imperial manuscripts on purple parchment
, often with text in silver or gold, and porphyrogenitos
or "born in the purple
" was a term for Byzantine offspring of a reigning Emperor. The color matched the increasing rare purple rock porphyry
, also associated with the imperial family.
reds and scarlets of the new silk
-weaving
centers of Italy, colored with kermes
. Kermes is extracted from the dried unlayed eggs of the insect Kermes vermilio
or Kermococcus vermilio found on species of oak
(especially the Kermes oak
of the Mediterranean region). The dye is of ancient origin; jars of kermes have been found in a Neolithic cave-burial at Adaoutse, Bouches-du-Rhône
. Similar dyes are extracted from the related insects Porphyrophora hamili of the Caucasus
region, Coccus polonicus (Polish cochineal
or Saint John's blood) of Eastern Europe, and the lac
-producing insects of India, Southeast Asia
, China, and Tibet
.
When kermes-dyed textiles achieved prominence around the mid-11th century, the dyestuff was called "grain" in all Western European languages because the desiccated eggs resemble fine grains of wheat or sand. Textiles dyed with kermes were described as dyed in the grain. Woollens were frequently dyed in the fleece with woad and then piece-dyed in kermes, producing a wide range colors from from blacks and grays through browns, murrey
s, purples, and sanguine
s. By the 14th and early 15th century, brilliant full grain kermes scarlet was "by far the most esteemed, most regal" color for luxury woollen textiles in the Low Countries
, England, France, Spain and Italy.
Cochineal
(Dactylopius coccus) is a scale insect
of Central
and North America
from which the crimson
-coloured dye carmine
is derived. It was used by the Aztec
and Maya
peoples. Moctezuma
in the 15th century collected tribute in the form of bags of cochineal dye. Soon after the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire cochineal began to be exported to Spain, and by the seventeenth century it was a commodity traded as far away as India. During the colonial period the production of cochineal (in Spanish, grana fina) grew rapidly. Produced almost exclusively in Oaxaca
by indigenous producers, cochineal became Mexico's second most valued export after silver. Cochineal produces purplish colors alone and brilliant scarlets when mordanted with tin, and cochineal, which produced a stronger dye and could thus be used in smaller quantities, replaced kermes dyes in general use in Europe from the 17th century.
in favor of dark blues, greens, and most importantly of all, black. The origins of the trend for somber colors are elusive, but are generally attributed to the growing influence of Spain
and possibly the importation of Spanish merino
wools. The trend spread in the next century: the Low Countries, German states
, Scandinavia
, England, France, and Italy all absorbed the sobering and formal influence of Spanish dress after the mid-1520s.
Producing fast black in the Middle Ages was a complicated process involving multiple dyeings with woad or indigo followed by mordanting, but at the dawn of Early Modern period
, a new and superior method of dyeing black dye reached Europe via Spanish conquests in the New World. The new method used logwood (Haematoxylum campechianum), a dyewood native to Mexico and Central America. Although logwood was poorly received at first, producing a blue inferior to that of woad and indigo, it was discovered to produce a fast black in combination with a ferrous sulfate (copperas) mordant. Despite changing fashions in color, logwood was the most widely used dye by the 19th century, providing the sober blacks of formal and mourning
clothes.
in 1856, an aniline dye derived from coal tar
. Alizarin
, the red dye present in madder, was the first natural pigment to be duplicated synthetically, in 1869, leading to the collapse of the market for naturally grown madder. The development of new, strongly colored aniline dyes followed quickly: a range of reddish-purples, blues, violets, greens and reds became available by 1880. These dyes had great affinity for animal fibers such as wool and silk. The new colors tended to fade and wash out, but they were inexpensive and could be produced in the vast quantities required by textile production in the industrial revolution
. By the 1870s commercial dyeing wth natural dyestuffs was fast disappearing.
At the same time the Pre-Raphaelite artist and founding figure of the Arts and Crafts movement
William Morris
took up the art of dyeing as an adjunct to his manufacturing business, the design firm of Morris & Co.
Always a medievalist at heart, Morris loathed the colors produced by the fashionable aniline dyes. He spent much of his time at his Staffordshire
dye works mastering the processes of dyeing with plant materials and making experiments in the revival of old or discovery of new methods. One result of these experiments was to reinstate indigo dyeing as a practical industry and generally to renew the use of natural dyes like madder which had been driven almost out of use by the commercial success of the anilines. Morris saw dyeing of wools, silks, and cottons as the necessary preliminary to the production of woven and printed fabrics of the highest excellence; and his period of incessant work at the dye-vat (1875–76) was followed by a period during which he was absorbed in the production of textiles (1877–78), and more especially in the revival of carpet- and tapestry
-weaving as fine arts. Morris & Co. also provided naturally dyed silks for the embroidery
style called art needlework
.
Scientists continued to search for new synthetic dyes that would be effective on cellulose
fibers like cotton and linen, and that would be more colorfast on wool and silk than the early anilines. Chrome or mordant dyes produced a muted but very fast color range for woollens. These were followed by acid dye
s for animal fibers (from 1875) and the synthesis of indigo in Germany in 1880. The work on indigo led to the development of a new class of dyes called vat dye
s in 1901 that produced a wide range of fast colors for vegetable fibers. Disperse dyes were introduced in 1923 to color the new textiles of cellulose acetate
, which could not be colored with any existing dyes. Today disperse dyes are the only effective means of coloring many synthetics. Reactive dye
s for both wool and cotton were introduced in the mid-1950s, and are used both in commercial textile production and in craft dyeing.
In America, synthetic dyes became popular among a wide range of Native American textile artists; however, natural dyes remained in use, as many textile collectors prefer natural dyes over synthetics. Today, dyeing with natural materials is often practiced as an adjunct to hand spinning
, knitting
and weaving
. It remains a living craft in many traditional cultures of North America, Africa, Asia, and the Scottish Highlands.
Plant
Plants are living organisms belonging to the kingdom Plantae. Precise definitions of the kingdom vary, but as the term is used here, plants include familiar organisms such as trees, flowers, herbs, bushes, grasses, vines, ferns, mosses, and green algae. The group is also called green plants or...
s, invertebrate
Invertebrate
An invertebrate is an animal without a backbone. The group includes 97% of all animal species – all animals except those in the chordate subphylum Vertebrata .Invertebrates form a paraphyletic group...
s, or mineral
Mineral
A mineral is a naturally occurring solid chemical substance formed through biogeochemical processes, having characteristic chemical composition, highly ordered atomic structure, and specific physical properties. By comparison, a rock is an aggregate of minerals and/or mineraloids and does not...
s. The majority of natural dyes are vegetable dyes from plant sources – root
Root
In vascular plants, the root is the organ of a plant that typically lies below the surface of the soil. This is not always the case, however, since a root can also be aerial or aerating . Furthermore, a stem normally occurring below ground is not exceptional either...
s, berries
Berry
The botanical definition of a berry is a fleshy fruit produced from a single ovary. Grapes are an example. The berry is the most common type of fleshy fruit in which the entire ovary wall ripens into an edible pericarp. They may have one or more carpels with a thin covering and fleshy interiors....
, bark
Bark
Bark is the outermost layers of stems and roots of woody plants. Plants with bark include trees, woody vines and shrubs. Bark refers to all the tissues outside of the vascular cambium and is a nontechnical term. It overlays the wood and consists of the inner bark and the outer bark. The inner...
, leaves
Leaf
A leaf is an organ of a vascular plant, as defined in botanical terms, and in particular in plant morphology. Foliage is a mass noun that refers to leaves as a feature of plants....
, and wood
Wood
Wood is a hard, fibrous tissue found in many trees. It has been used for hundreds of thousands of years for both fuel and as a construction material. It is an organic material, a natural composite of cellulose fibers embedded in a matrix of lignin which resists compression...
— and other organic sources such as fungi and lichen
Lichen
Lichens are composite organisms consisting of a symbiotic organism composed of a fungus with a photosynthetic partner , usually either a green alga or cyanobacterium...
s.
Archaeologists have found evidence of textile
Textile
A textile or cloth is a flexible woven material consisting of a network of natural or artificial fibres often referred to as thread or yarn. Yarn is produced by spinning raw fibres of wool, flax, cotton, or other material to produce long strands...
dyeing
Dyeing
Dyeing is the process of adding color to textile products like fibers, yarns, and fabrics. Dyeing is normally done in a special solution containing dyes and particular chemical material. After dyeing, dye molecules have uncut Chemical bond with fiber molecules. The temperature and time controlling...
dating back to the Neolithic
Neolithic
The Neolithic Age, Era, or Period, or New Stone Age, was a period in the development of human technology, beginning about 9500 BC in some parts of the Middle East, and later in other parts of the world. It is traditionally considered as the last part of the Stone Age...
period. In China, dyeing with plants, barks and insects has been traced back more than 5,000 years. The essential process of dyeing changed FUNNY LOOKIN POTATO :D Typically, the dye material is put in a pot of water and then the textiles to be dyed are added to the pot, which is heated and stirred until the color is transferred. Textile fiber may be dyed before spinning
Spinning (textiles)
Spinning is a major industry. It is part of the textile manufacturing process where three types of fibre are converted into yarn, then fabric, then textiles. The textiles are then fabricated into clothes or other artifacts. There are three industrial processes available to spin yarn, and a...
(dyed in the wool), but most textiles are yarn
Yarn
Yarn is a long continuous length of interlocked fibres, suitable for use in the production of textiles, sewing, crocheting, knitting, weaving, embroidery and ropemaking. Thread is a type of yarn intended for sewing by hand or machine. Modern manufactured sewing threads may be finished with wax or...
-dyed or piece-dyed after weaving
Weaving
Weaving is a method of fabric production in which two distinct sets of yarns or threads are interlaced at right angles to form a fabric or cloth. The other methods are knitting, lace making and felting. The longitudinal threads are called the warp and the lateral threads are the weft or filling...
. Many natural dyes require the use of chemicals called mordant
Mordant
A mordant is a substance used to set dyes on fabrics or tissue sections by forming a coordination complex with the dye which then attaches to the fabric or tissue. It may be used for dyeing fabrics, or for intensifying stains in cell or tissue preparations. The term mordant comes from the Latin...
s to bind the dye to the textile fibers; tannin
Tannin
A tannin is an astringent, bitter plant polyphenolic compound that binds to and precipitates proteins and various other organic compounds including amino acids and alkaloids.The term tannin refers to the use of...
from oak galls, salt, natural alum
Alum
Alum is both a specific chemical compound and a class of chemical compounds. The specific compound is the hydrated potassium aluminium sulfate with the formula KAl2.12H2O. The wider class of compounds known as alums have the related empirical formula, AB2.12H2O.-Chemical properties:Alums are...
, vinegar
Vinegar
Vinegar is a liquid substance consisting mainly of acetic acid and water, the acetic acid being produced through the fermentation of ethanol by acetic acid bacteria. Commercial vinegar is produced either by fast or slow fermentation processes. Slow methods generally are used with traditional...
, and ammonia
Ammonia
Ammonia is a compound of nitrogen and hydrogen with the formula . It is a colourless gas with a characteristic pungent odour. Ammonia contributes significantly to the nutritional needs of terrestrial organisms by serving as a precursor to food and fertilizers. Ammonia, either directly or...
from stale urine
Urine
Urine is a typically sterile liquid by-product of the body that is secreted by the kidneys through a process called urination and excreted through the urethra. Cellular metabolism generates numerous by-products, many rich in nitrogen, that require elimination from the bloodstream...
were used by early dyers. Many mordants, and some dyes themselves, produce strong odors, and large-scale dyeworks were often isolated in their own districts.
Throughout history, people have dyed their textiles using common, locally available materials, but scarce dyestuffs that produced brilliant and permanent colors such as the natural invertebrate dyes Tyrian purple
Tyrian purple
Tyrian purple , also known as royal purple, imperial purple or imperial dye, is a purple-red natural dye, which is extracted from sea snails, and which was possibly first produced by the ancient Phoenicians...
and crimson kermes
Kermes (dye)
Kermes is a red dye derived from the dried bodies the females of a scale insect in the genus Kermes, primarily Kermes vermilio. The insects live on the sap of certain trees, especially Kermes oak tree near the Mediterranean region...
became highly prized luxury items in the ancient and medieval world. Plant-based dyes such as woad, indigo
Indigo dye
Indigo dye is an organic compound with a distinctive blue color . Historically, indigo was a natural dye extracted from plants, and this process was important economically because blue dyes were once rare. Nearly all indigo dye produced today — several thousand tons each year — is synthetic...
, saffron
Trade and use of saffron
Saffron has been a key seasoning, fragrance, dye, and medicine for over three millennia. One of the world's most expensive spice by weight, saffron consists of stigmas plucked from the vegetatively propagated and sterile Crocus sativus, known popularly as the saffron crocus...
, and madder
Rubiá
aRubiá is a municipality in the Spanish province of Ourense. It has a population of 1734 and an area of 101 km²....
were raised commercially and were important trade goods in the economies of Asia and Europe. Across Asia and Africa, patterned fabrics were produced using resist dyeing
Resist dyeing
Resist dyeing is a term for a number of traditional methods of dyeing textiles with patterns. Methods are used to "resist" or prevent the dye from reaching all the cloth, thereby creating a pattern and ground. The most common forms use wax, some type of paste, or a mechanical resist that...
techniques to control the absorption of color in piece-dyed cloth. Dyes from the New World
New World
The New World is one of the names used for the Western Hemisphere, specifically America and sometimes Oceania . The term originated in the late 15th century, when America had been recently discovered by European explorers, expanding the geographical horizon of the people of the European middle...
such as cochineal
Cochineal
The cochineal is a scale insect in the suborder Sternorrhyncha, from which the crimson-colour dye carmine is derived. A primarily sessile parasite native to tropical and subtropical South America and Mexico, this insect lives on cacti from the genus Opuntia, feeding on plant moisture and...
and logwood were brought to Europe by the Spanish
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
treasure fleets, and the dyestuffs of Europe were carried by colonists to America.
The discovery of man-made synthetic dye
Dye
A dye is a colored substance that has an affinity to the substrate to which it is being applied. The dye is generally applied in an aqueous solution, and requires a mordant to improve the fastness of the dye on the fiber....
s in the mid-19th century triggered a long decline in the large-scale market for natural dyes. Synthetic dyes, which could be produced in large quantities, quickly superseded natural dyes for the commercial textile production enabled by the industrial revolution
Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution was a period from the 18th to the 19th century where major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, transportation, and technology had a profound effect on the social, economic and cultural conditions of the times...
, and unlike natural dyes, were suitable for the synthetic fibers that followed. Artists of the Arts and Crafts Movement
Arts and Crafts movement
Arts and Crafts was an international design philosophy that originated in England and flourished between 1860 and 1910 , continuing its influence until the 1930s...
preferred the pure shades and subtle variability of natural dyes, which mellow with age but preserve their true colors, unlike early synthetic dyes, and helped ensure that the old European techniques for dyeing and printing with natural dyestuffs were preserved for use by home and craft
Craft
A craft is a branch of a profession that requires some particular kind of skilled work. In historical sense, particularly as pertinent to the Medieval history and earlier, the term is usually applied towards people occupied in small-scale production of goods.-Development from the past until...
dyers. Natural dyeing techniques are also preserved by artisans in traditional cultures around the world.
In the early 21st century, the market for natural dyes in the fashion industry is experiencing a resurgence. Western consumers have become more concerned about the health and environmental impact of synthetic dyes in manufacturing and there is a growing demand for products that use natural dyes. The European Union, for example, has encouraged Indonesian batik cloth producers to switch to natural dyes to improve their export market in Europe.
Dyes in use in the fashion industry
Fibre content determines the type of dye required for a fabric:- CelluloseCelluloseCellulose is an organic compound with the formula , a polysaccharide consisting of a linear chain of several hundred to over ten thousand β linked D-glucose units....
fibres: cotton, linen, hemp, ramie, bamboo, rayon - ProteinProteinProteins are biochemical compounds consisting of one or more polypeptides typically folded into a globular or fibrous form, facilitating a biological function. A polypeptide is a single linear polymer chain of amino acids bonded together by peptide bonds between the carboxyl and amino groups of...
fibres: wool, angora, mohair, cashmere, silk, soy, leather, suede
Cellulose fibres require fibre-reactive, direct/substantive, and vat dyes, which are colourless, soluble dyes fixed by light and/or oxygen. Protein fibres require vat, acid, or indirect/mordant dyes, that require a bonding agent. Each synthetic fibre requires its own dyeing method, for example, nylon requires acid, disperse and pigment dyes, rayon acetate requires disperse dyes, and so on. The types of natural dyes currently in use by the global fashion industry include:
Animal:
- CochinealCochinealThe cochineal is a scale insect in the suborder Sternorrhyncha, from which the crimson-colour dye carmine is derived. A primarily sessile parasite native to tropical and subtropical South America and Mexico, this insect lives on cacti from the genus Opuntia, feeding on plant moisture and...
insect (red) - Cow urine (Indian yellow)
- LacLacLac is the scarlet resinous secretion of a number of species of insects, namely some of the species of the genera Metatachardia, Laccifer, Tachordiella, Austrotacharidia, Afrotachardina, and Tachardina of the superfamily Coccoidea, of which the most commonly cultivated species is Kerria lacca.The...
insect (red, violet) - Murex snail (purple)
- OctopusOctopusThe octopus is a cephalopod mollusc of the order Octopoda. Octopuses have two eyes and four pairs of arms, and like other cephalopods they are bilaterally symmetric. An octopus has a hard beak, with its mouth at the center point of the arms...
/CuttlefishCuttlefishCuttlefish are marine animals of the order Sepiida. They belong to the class Cephalopoda . Despite their name, cuttlefish are not fish but molluscs....
(sepia brown)
Plant:
- CatechuCatechuFor the region in India, see Kutch District.Catechu is an extract of any of several species of Acacia—but especially Acacia catechu—produced by boiling the wood in water and evaporating the resulting brew....
or Cutch tree (brown) - GambogeGambogeGamboge is a partially transparent dark mustard yellow pigment.Other forms and spellings are: cambodia, cambogium, camboge, cambugium, gambaugium, gambogia, gambozia, gamboidea, gambogium, gumbouge, gambouge, gamboge, gambooge, gambugia...
tree resinResinResin in the most specific use of the term is a hydrocarbon secretion of many plants, particularly coniferous trees. Resins are valued for their chemical properties and associated uses, such as the production of varnishes, adhesives, and food glazing agents; as an important source of raw materials...
(dark mustard yellow) - Himalayan rubhada root (yellow)
- IndigoferaIndigoferaIndigofera is a large genus of about 700 species of flowering plants belonging to the family Fabaceae.The species are mostly shrubs, though some are herbaceous, and a few can become small trees up to tall. Most are dry-season or winter deciduous. The leaves are pinnate with 5–31 leaflets and the...
plant (blue) - KamalaKamalaKamala is a common Hindu name, usually meaning Nelumbo nucifera, the lotus. Variants include Kamal and Kamla. It is unrelated to the similar sounding name of Arabic origin meaning perfection or integrity usually spelled Kamal in English but spelled Kemal in Turkish, which appears as the middle name...
tree (orange-yellow, golden yellow) - LarkspurLarkspurLarkspur may refer to:* Larkspur, California* Larkspur, Colorado* Larkspur radio system, used by the British Army* Delphinium, a genus of 300 flowers with widespread nativity* Consolida, a genus of 40 flowers native to central and western Eurasia...
plant (yellow) - MadderMadderRubia is a genus of the madder family Rubiaceae, which contains about 60 species of perennial scrambling or climbing herbs and sub-shrubs native to the Old World, Africa, temperate Asia and America...
root (red, pink, orange) - Myrabolan fruit (yellow, green, black)
- Pomegranite peel (yellow)
- WeldWeldWeld most commonly refers to a joint formed by welding.Weld may also refer to:-People:* Weld family, an extended family of New England** Theodore Dwight Weld** Tuesday Weld* Weld-Blundell family* Cecil Weld-Forester, 1st Baron Forester...
herb (yellow)
Mineral:
- ArsenicArsenicArsenic is a chemical element with the symbol As, atomic number 33 and relative atomic mass 74.92. Arsenic occurs in many minerals, usually in conjunction with sulfur and metals, and also as a pure elemental crystal. It was first documented by Albertus Magnus in 1250.Arsenic is a metalloid...
(green) - Brown clayClayClay is a general term including many combinations of one or more clay minerals with traces of metal oxides and organic matter. Geologic clay deposits are mostly composed of phyllosilicate minerals containing variable amounts of water trapped in the mineral structure.- Formation :Clay minerals...
(umber brown) - CadmiumCadmiumCadmium is a chemical element with the symbol Cd and atomic number 48. This soft, bluish-white metal is chemically similar to the two other stable metals in group 12, zinc and mercury. Similar to zinc, it prefers oxidation state +2 in most of its compounds and similar to mercury it shows a low...
(green, red, yellow, orange) - CarbonCarbonCarbon is the chemical element with symbol C and atomic number 6. As a member of group 14 on the periodic table, it is nonmetallic and tetravalent—making four electrons available to form covalent chemical bonds...
(black) - ChromiumChromiumChromium is a chemical element which has the symbol Cr and atomic number 24. It is the first element in Group 6. It is a steely-gray, lustrous, hard metal that takes a high polish and has a high melting point. It is also odorless, tasteless, and malleable...
(yellow, green) - CinnabarCinnabarCinnabar or cinnabarite , is the common ore of mercury.-Word origin:The name comes from κινναβαρι , a Greek word most likely applied by Theophrastus to several distinct substances...
(vermillion) - CobaltCobaltCobalt is a chemical element with symbol Co and atomic number 27. It is found naturally only in chemically combined form. The free element, produced by reductive smelting, is a hard, lustrous, silver-gray metal....
(blue) - CopperCopperCopper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu and atomic number 29. It is a ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. Pure copper is soft and malleable; an exposed surface has a reddish-orange tarnish...
(green, blue, purple) - Hydrated iron oxideIron oxideIron oxides are chemical compounds composed of iron and oxygen. All together, there are sixteen known iron oxides and oxyhydroxides.Iron oxides and oxide-hydroxides are widespread in nature, play an important role in many geological and biological processes, and are widely utilized by humans, e.g.,...
(ochre) - LeadLeadLead is a main-group element in the carbon group with the symbol Pb and atomic number 82. Lead is a soft, malleable poor metal. It is also counted as one of the heavy metals. Metallic lead has a bluish-white color after being freshly cut, but it soon tarnishes to a dull grayish color when exposed...
(white, yellow-red) - LimoniteLimoniteLimonite is an ore consisting in a mixture of hydrated iron oxide-hydroxide of varying composition. The generic formula is frequently written as FeO·nH2O, although this is not entirely accurate as limonite often contains a varying amount of oxide compared to hydroxide.Together with hematite, it has...
clay (sienna) - TitaniumTitaniumTitanium is a chemical element with the symbol Ti and atomic number 22. It has a low density and is a strong, lustrous, corrosion-resistant transition metal with a silver color....
(white, beige, yellow, black) - ZincZincZinc , or spelter , is a metallic chemical element; it has the symbol Zn and atomic number 30. It is the first element in group 12 of the periodic table. Zinc is, in some respects, chemically similar to magnesium, because its ion is of similar size and its only common oxidation state is +2...
(white)
Origins
Colors in the "ruddy" range of reds, browns, and oranges are the first attested colors in a number of ancient textile sites ranging from the NeolithicNeolithic
The Neolithic Age, Era, or Period, or New Stone Age, was a period in the development of human technology, beginning about 9500 BC in some parts of the Middle East, and later in other parts of the world. It is traditionally considered as the last part of the Stone Age...
to the Bronze Age
Bronze Age
The Bronze Age is a period characterized by the use of copper and its alloy bronze as the chief hard materials in the manufacture of some implements and weapons. Chronologically, it stands between the Stone Age and Iron Age...
across the Levant
Levant
The Levant or ) is the geographic region and culture zone of the "eastern Mediterranean littoral between Anatolia and Egypt" . The Levant includes most of modern Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Israel, the Palestinian territories, and sometimes parts of Turkey and Iraq, and corresponds roughly to the...
, Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
, Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia is a toponym for the area of the Tigris–Euphrates river system, largely corresponding to modern-day Iraq, northeastern Syria, southeastern Turkey and southwestern Iran.Widely considered to be the cradle of civilization, Bronze Age Mesopotamia included Sumer and the...
and Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
, followed by evidence of blues and then yellows, with green appearing somewhat later. The earliest surviving evidence of textile dyeing was found at the large Neolithic
Neolithic
The Neolithic Age, Era, or Period, or New Stone Age, was a period in the development of human technology, beginning about 9500 BC in some parts of the Middle East, and later in other parts of the world. It is traditionally considered as the last part of the Stone Age...
settlement at Çatalhöyük
Çatalhöyük
Çatalhöyük was a very large Neolithic and Chalcolithic settlement in southern Anatolia, which existed from approximately 7500 BCE to 5700 BCE...
in southern Anatolia
Anatolia
Anatolia is a geographic and historical term denoting the westernmost protrusion of Asia, comprising the majority of the Republic of Turkey...
, where traces of red dyes, possible from ochre
Ochre
Ochre is the term for both a golden-yellow or light yellow brown color and for a form of earth pigment which produces the color. The pigment can also be used to create a reddish tint known as "red ochre". The more rarely used terms "purple ochre" and "brown ochre" also exist for variant hues...
(iron oxide
Iron oxide
Iron oxides are chemical compounds composed of iron and oxygen. All together, there are sixteen known iron oxides and oxyhydroxides.Iron oxides and oxide-hydroxides are widespread in nature, play an important role in many geological and biological processes, and are widely utilized by humans, e.g.,...
pigment
Pigment
A pigment is a material that changes the color of reflected or transmitted light as the result of wavelength-selective absorption. This physical process differs from fluorescence, phosphorescence, and other forms of luminescence, in which a material emits light.Many materials selectively absorb...
s from clay
Clay
Clay is a general term including many combinations of one or more clay minerals with traces of metal oxides and organic matter. Geologic clay deposits are mostly composed of phyllosilicate minerals containing variable amounts of water trapped in the mineral structure.- Formation :Clay minerals...
), were found. Polychrome or multicolored fabrics seem to have been developed in the 3rd or 2nd millennium BCE. Textiles with a "red-brown warp
Warp (weaving)
In weaving cloth, the warp is the set of lengthwise yarns that are held in tension on a frame or loom. The yarn that is inserted over-and-under the warp threads is called the weft, woof, or filler. Each individual warp thread in a fabric is called a warp end or end. Warp means "that which is thrown...
and an ochre-yellow weft
Weft
In weaving, weft or woof is the yarn which is drawn through the warp yarns to create cloth. In North America, it is sometimes referred to as the "fill" or the "filling yarn"....
" were discovered in Egyptian pyramids of the Sixth Dynasty (2345-2180 BCE).
The chemical analysis that would definitively identify the dyes used in ancient textiles has rarely been conducted, and even when a dye such as indigo blue is detected it is impossible to determine which of several indigo-bearing plants was used. Nevertheless, based on the colors of surviving textile fragments and the evidence of actual dyestuffs found in archaeological sites, reds, blues, and yellows from plant sources were in common use by the late Bronze Age and Iron Age
Iron Age
The Iron Age is the archaeological period generally occurring after the Bronze Age, marked by the prevalent use of iron. The early period of the age is characterized by the widespread use of iron or steel. The adoption of such material coincided with other changes in society, including differing...
.
Processes
The essential process of dyeing requires soaking the material containing the dye (the dyestuff) in water, adding the textile to be dyed to the resulting solution (the dyebath), and bringing the solution to a simmerSimmering
Simmering is a food preparation technique in which foods are cooked in hot liquids kept at or just below the boiling point of water , but higher than poaching temperature...
for an extended period, often measured in days or even weeks, stirring occasionally until the color has evenly transferred to the textiles.
Some dyestuffs, such as indigo
Indigo dye
Indigo dye is an organic compound with a distinctive blue color . Historically, indigo was a natural dye extracted from plants, and this process was important economically because blue dyes were once rare. Nearly all indigo dye produced today — several thousand tons each year — is synthetic...
and lichen
Lichen
Lichens are composite organisms consisting of a symbiotic organism composed of a fungus with a photosynthetic partner , usually either a green alga or cyanobacterium...
s, will give good color when used alone; these dyes are called direct dyes or substantive dye
Substantive dye
Substantive dye is a dye used in a process in which dye molecules are attracted by physical forces at the molecular level to the textile. The amount of this attraction is known as "substantivity": the higher the substantivity the greater the attraction of the dye for the fiber...
s. The majority of plant dyes, however, also require the use of a mordant
Mordant
A mordant is a substance used to set dyes on fabrics or tissue sections by forming a coordination complex with the dye which then attaches to the fabric or tissue. It may be used for dyeing fabrics, or for intensifying stains in cell or tissue preparations. The term mordant comes from the Latin...
, a chemical used to "fix" the color in the textile fibers. These dyes are called adjective dyes. By using different mordants, dyers can often obtain a variety of colors and shades from the same dye. Fibers or cloth may be pretreated with mordants, or the mordant may be incorporated in the dyebath. In traditional dyeing, the common mordants are vinegar
Vinegar
Vinegar is a liquid substance consisting mainly of acetic acid and water, the acetic acid being produced through the fermentation of ethanol by acetic acid bacteria. Commercial vinegar is produced either by fast or slow fermentation processes. Slow methods generally are used with traditional...
, tannin
Tannin
A tannin is an astringent, bitter plant polyphenolic compound that binds to and precipitates proteins and various other organic compounds including amino acids and alkaloids.The term tannin refers to the use of...
from oak
Oak
An oak is a tree or shrub in the genus Quercus , of which about 600 species exist. "Oak" may also appear in the names of species in related genera, notably Lithocarpus...
bark, sumac
Sumac
Sumac is any one of approximately 250 species of flowering plants in the genus Rhus and related genera, in the family Anacardiaceae. Sumacs grow in subtropical and temperate regions throughout the world, especially in Africa and North America....
, or oak galls, ammonia
Ammonia
Ammonia is a compound of nitrogen and hydrogen with the formula . It is a colourless gas with a characteristic pungent odour. Ammonia contributes significantly to the nutritional needs of terrestrial organisms by serving as a precursor to food and fertilizers. Ammonia, either directly or...
from stale urine, and wood-ash liquor or potash
Potash
Potash is the common name for various mined and manufactured salts that contain potassium in water-soluble form. In some rare cases, potash can be formed with traces of organic materials such as plant remains, and this was the major historical source for it before the industrial era...
(potassium carbonate
Potassium carbonate
Potassium carbonate is a white salt, soluble in water , which forms a strongly alkaline solution. It can be made as the product of potassium hydroxide's absorbent reaction with carbon dioxide. It is deliquescent, often appearing a damp or wet solid...
) made by leaching
Leaching (chemical science)
Leaching is the process of extracting minerals from a solid by dissolving them in a liquid, either in nature or through an industrial process. In the chemical processing industry, leaching has a variety of commercial applications, including separation of metal from ore using acid, and sugar from...
wood ashes and evaporating the solution.
Salt helps to "fix" or increase "fastness" of colors, vinegar improves reds and purples, and the ammonia
Ammonia
Ammonia is a compound of nitrogen and hydrogen with the formula . It is a colourless gas with a characteristic pungent odour. Ammonia contributes significantly to the nutritional needs of terrestrial organisms by serving as a precursor to food and fertilizers. Ammonia, either directly or...
in stale urine assists in the fermentation of indigo dyes.
Natural alum (aluminum sulfate) is the most common metallic salt mordant, but tin (stannous chloride
Tin(II) chloride
Tin chloride is a white crystalline solid with the formula 2. It forms a stable dihydrate, but aqueous solutions tend to undergo hydrolysis, particularly if hot. SnCl2 is widely used as a reducing agent , and in electrolytic baths for tin-plating...
), copper (cupric sulfate), iron (ferrous sulfate
Iron(II) sulfate
Iron sulfate or ferrous sulfate is the chemical compound with the formula FeSO4. Known since ancient times as copperas and as green vitriol, the blue-green heptahydrate is the most common form of this material...
, called copperas) and chrome (potassium dichromate) are also used. Iron mordants "sadden" colors, while tin and chrome mordants brighten colors. Additional chemicals or alterants may be applied after dying to further alter or reinforce the colors.
Textiles may be dyed as raw fiber (dyed in the fleece or dyed in the wool), as spun
Spinning (textiles)
Spinning is a major industry. It is part of the textile manufacturing process where three types of fibre are converted into yarn, then fabric, then textiles. The textiles are then fabricated into clothes or other artifacts. There are three industrial processes available to spin yarn, and a...
yarn
Yarn
Yarn is a long continuous length of interlocked fibres, suitable for use in the production of textiles, sewing, crocheting, knitting, weaving, embroidery and ropemaking. Thread is a type of yarn intended for sewing by hand or machine. Modern manufactured sewing threads may be finished with wax or...
(dyed in the hank or yarn-dyed), or after weaving
Weaving
Weaving is a method of fabric production in which two distinct sets of yarns or threads are interlaced at right angles to form a fabric or cloth. The other methods are knitting, lace making and felting. The longitudinal threads are called the warp and the lateral threads are the weft or filling...
(piece-dyed). Mordants often leave residue in wool fiber that makes it difficult to spin, so wool was generally dyed after spinning, as yarn or woven cloth. Indigo, however, requires no mordant, and cloth manufacturers in medieval England often dyed wool in the fleece with the indigo-bearing plant woad and then dyed the cloth again after weaving to produce deep blues, browns, reds, purples, blacks, and tawnies.
In China, Japan, India, Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
, Nigeria
Nigeria
Nigeria , officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a federal constitutional republic comprising 36 states and its Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. The country is located in West Africa and shares land borders with the Republic of Benin in the west, Chad and Cameroon in the east, and Niger in...
, Gambia, and other parts of West Africa
West Africa
West Africa or Western Africa is the westernmost region of the African continent. Geopolitically, the UN definition of Western Africa includes the following 16 countries and an area of approximately 5 million square km:-Flags of West Africa:...
and southeast Asia
Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia, South-East Asia, South East Asia or Southeastern Asia is a subregion of Asia, consisting of the countries that are geographically south of China, east of India, west of New Guinea and north of Australia. The region lies on the intersection of geological plates, with heavy seismic...
, patterned silk and cotton fabrics were produced using resist dyeing
Resist dyeing
Resist dyeing is a term for a number of traditional methods of dyeing textiles with patterns. Methods are used to "resist" or prevent the dye from reaching all the cloth, thereby creating a pattern and ground. The most common forms use wax, some type of paste, or a mechanical resist that...
techniques in which the cloth is printed
Woodblock printing on textiles
Woodblock printing on textiles is the process of printing patterns on textiles, usually of linen, cotton or silk, by means of incised wooden blocks. It is the earliest, simplest and slowest of all methods of textile printing. Block printing by hand is a slow process...
or stencil
Stencil
A stencil is a thin sheet of material, such as paper, plastic, or metal, with letters or a design cut from it, used to produce the letters or design on an underlying surface by applying pigment through the cut-out holes in the material. The key advantage of a stencil is that it can be reused to...
ed with starch
Starch
Starch or amylum is a carbohydrate consisting of a large number of glucose units joined together by glycosidic bonds. This polysaccharide is produced by all green plants as an energy store...
or wax
Wax
thumb|right|[[Cetyl palmitate]], a typical wax ester.Wax refers to a class of chemical compounds that are plastic near ambient temperatures. Characteristically, they melt above 45 °C to give a low viscosity liquid. Waxes are insoluble in water but soluble in organic, nonpolar solvents...
, or tied in various ways to prevent even penetration of the dye when the cloth is piece-dyed. Chinese ladao is dated to the 10th century; other traditional techniques include tie-dye
Tie-dye
Tie-dye is a process of resist dyeing textiles or clothing which is made from knit or woven fabric, usually cotton; typically using bright colors. It is a modern version of traditional dyeing methods used in many cultures throughout the world. "Tie-dye" can also describe the resulting pattern or an...
, batik
Batik
Batik is a cloth that traditionally uses a manual wax-resist dyeing technique. Batik or fabrics with the traditional batik patterns are found in Indonesia, Malaysia, Japan, China, Azerbaijan, India, Sri Lanka, Egypt, Nigeria, Senegal, and Singapore.Javanese traditional batik, especially from...
, Rōketsuzome
Roketsuzome
Rōketsuzome or short rōzome is a traditional wax-resist textile dyeing technique in Japan, akin to Indonesian batik.- References :*...
, katazome
Katazome
Katazome is a Japanese method of dyeing fabrics using a resist paste applied through a stencil. With this kind of resist dyeing, a rice flour mixture is applied using a brush or a tool such as a palette knife. Pigment is added by hand-painting, immersion or both...
, bandhani and leheria
Leheria
Leheria is a traditional style of tie dye practiced in Rajasthan, India that results in brightly colored cloth with distinctive patterns...
.
The mordants used in dyeing and many dyestuffs themselves give off strong and unpleasant odors, and the actual process of dyeing requires a good supply of fresh water, storage areas for bulky plant materials, vats which can be kept heated (often for days or weeks), and airy spaces to dry the dyed textiles. Ancient large-scale dye-works tend to be located on the outskirts of populated areas, on windy promontories.
Common dyestuffs
Reds and pinks
A variety of plants produce red dyes, including a number of lichenLichen
Lichens are composite organisms consisting of a symbiotic organism composed of a fungus with a photosynthetic partner , usually either a green alga or cyanobacterium...
s, henna
Henna
Henna is a flowering plant used since antiquity to dye skin, hair, fingernails, leather and wool. The name is also used for dye preparations derived from the plant, and for the art of temporary tattooing based on those dyes...
, alkanet or dyer's bugloss (Alkanna tinctoria), asafoetida
Asafoetida
Asafoetida , alternative spelling asafetida, is the dried latex exuded from the living underground rhizome or tap root of several species of Ferula, which is a perennial herb...
and madder
Rubia tinctorum
Rubia tinctorum, the common madder or dyer's madder, is a plant species in the genus Rubia.The plant's roots contain several polyphenolic compounds like 1,3-Dihydroxyanthraquinone , 1,4-Dihydroxyanthraquinone , 1,2,4-Trihydroxyanthraquinone and 1,2-dihydroxyanthraquinone...
. Madder (Rubia tinctorum
Rubia tinctorum
Rubia tinctorum, the common madder or dyer's madder, is a plant species in the genus Rubia.The plant's roots contain several polyphenolic compounds like 1,3-Dihydroxyanthraquinone , 1,4-Dihydroxyanthraquinone , 1,2,4-Trihydroxyanthraquinone and 1,2-dihydroxyanthraquinone...
) and related plants of the Rubia family are native to many temperate zones around the world, and have been used as a source of good red dye (rose madder
Rose madder
Rose Madder is the commercial name sometimes used to designate a paint made from the pigment Madder Lake - a traditional lake pigment, extracted from the common madder plant ....
) since prehistory. Madder has been identified on linen
Linen
Linen is a textile made from the fibers of the flax plant, Linum usitatissimum. Linen is labor-intensive to manufacture, but when it is made into garments, it is valued for its exceptional coolness and freshness in hot weather....
in the tomb of Tutankhamun
Tutankhamun
Tutankhamun , Egyptian , ; approx. 1341 BC – 1323 BC) was an Egyptian pharaoh of the 18th dynasty , during the period of Egyptian history known as the New Kingdom...
, and Pliny the Elder
Pliny the Elder
Gaius Plinius Secundus , better known as Pliny the Elder, was a Roman author, naturalist, and natural philosopher, as well as naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and personal friend of the emperor Vespasian...
records madder growing near Rome. Madder was a dye of commercial importance in Europe, being cultivated in Holland and France to dye the red coats
Red coat (British army)
Red coat or Redcoat is a historical term used to refer to soldiers of the British Army because of the red uniforms formerly worn by the majority of regiments. From the late 17th century to the early 20th century, the uniform of most British soldiers, , included a madder red coat or coatee...
of military uniforms until the market collapsed following the development of synthetic alizarin
Alizarin
Alizarin or 1,2-dihydroxyanthraquinone is an organic compound with formula that has been used throughout history as a prominent dye, originally derived from the roots of plants of the madder genus.Alizarin was used as a red dye for the English parliamentary "new model" army...
dye in 1869. Madder was also used to dye the "hunting pinks" of Great Britain.
Turkey red was a strong, very fast red dye for cotton obtained from madder root via a complicated multistep process involving "sumac
Sumac
Sumac is any one of approximately 250 species of flowering plants in the genus Rhus and related genera, in the family Anacardiaceae. Sumacs grow in subtropical and temperate regions throughout the world, especially in Africa and North America....
and oak galls, calf's blood, sheep's dung, oil, soda, alum, and a solution of tin." Turkey red was developed in India and spread to Turkey. Greek workers familiar with the methods of its production were brought to France in 1747, and Dutch and English spies soon discovered the secret. A sanitized version of Turkey red was being produced in Manchester by 1784, and roller-printed dress cottons with a Turkey red ground were fashionable in England by the 1820s.
Munjeet or Indian madder (Rubia cordifolia) is native to the Himalayas and other mountains of Asia and Japan. Munjeet was an important dye for the Asian cotton industry and is still used by craft dyers in Nepal.
Puccoon or bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis) is a popular red dye among Southeastern Native American basketweavers. Choctaw
Choctaw
The Choctaw are a Native American people originally from the Southeastern United States...
basketweavers additionally use sumac
Sumac
Sumac is any one of approximately 250 species of flowering plants in the genus Rhus and related genera, in the family Anacardiaceae. Sumacs grow in subtropical and temperate regions throughout the world, especially in Africa and North America....
for red dye. Coushatta
Coushatta
----The Coushatta are a historic Muskogean-speaking Native American people living primarily in the U.S. state of Louisiana. When first encountered by Europeans, they lived in the territory of present-day Georgia and Alabama...
s artists from Texas and Louisiana used the water oak
Water oak
Quercus nigra, the Water Oak, is an oak in the red oak group , native to the southeastern United States, from southern Delaware and south to the coastal areas of Maryland, Virginia, the piedmont of North Carolina, all of South Carolina, most of Georgia , all of Alabama, Mississippi, central...
(Quercus nigra L.) to produce red.
A delicate rose color in Navajo rug
Navajo rug
Navajo rugs and blankets are textiles produced by Navajo people of the Four Corners area of the United States. Navajo textiles are highly regarded and have been sought after as trade items for over 150 years. Commercial production of handwoven blankets and rugs has been an important element of the...
s comes from fermented prickly pear cactus fruit, Opuntia polycantha. Navajo weavers also use rainwater and red dirt to create salmon-pink dyes.
Oranges
Dyes that create reds and yellows can also yield oranges. Navajo dyers create orange dyes from one-seeded juniper, Juniperus monospermaJuniperus monosperma
Juniperus monosperma is a species of juniper native to western North America, in the United States in Arizona, New Mexico, southern Colorado, western Oklahoma , and western Texas, and in Mexico in the extreme north of Chihuahua...
, Navajo tea, Thelesperma gracile, or alder
Alder
Alder is the common name of a genus of flowering plants belonging to the birch family . The genus comprises about 30 species of monoecious trees and shrubs, few reaching large size, distributed throughout the North Temperate Zone and in the Americas along the Andes southwards to...
bark.
Yellows
Yellow dyes are "about as numerous as red ones", and can be extracted from saffronSaffron
Saffron is a spice derived from the flower of Crocus sativus, commonly known as the saffron crocus. Crocus is a genus in the family Iridaceae. Each saffron crocus grows to and bears up to four flowers, each with three vivid crimson stigmas, which are each the distal end of a carpel...
, pomegranate
Pomegranate
The pomegranate , Punica granatum, is a fruit-bearing deciduous shrub or small tree growing between five and eight meters tall.Native to the area of modern day Iran, the pomegranate has been cultivated in the Caucasus since ancient times. From there it spread to Asian areas such as the Caucasus as...
rind, turmeric
Turmeric
Turmeric is a rhizomatous herbaceous perennial plant of the ginger family, Zingiberaceae. It is native to tropical South Asia and needs temperatures between 20 °C and 30 °C and a considerable amount of annual rainfall to thrive...
, safflower
Safflower
Safflower is a highly branched, herbaceous, thistle-like annual. It is commercially cultivated for vegetable oil extracted from the seeds. Plants are 30 to 150 cm tall with globular flower heads having yellow, orange or red flowers. Each branch will usually have from one to five flower heads...
, onion
Onion
The onion , also known as the bulb onion, common onion and garden onion, is the most widely cultivated species of the genus Allium. The genus Allium also contains a number of other species variously referred to as onions and cultivated for food, such as the Japanese bunching onion The onion...
skins, and a number of weedy flowering plants. There is limited evidence of the use of weld (Reseda luteola), also called mignonette or dyer's rocket before the Iron Age, but it was an important dye of the ancient Mediterranean and Europe, and is indigenous to England. Two brilliant yellow dyes of commercial importance in Europe from the 18th century are derived from trees of the Americas
Americas
The Americas, or America , are lands in the Western hemisphere, also known as the New World. In English, the plural form the Americas is often used to refer to the landmasses of North America and South America with their associated islands and regions, while the singular form America is primarily...
: quercitron
Quercitron
Quercitron is a yellow natural dye obtained from the bark of the Eastern Black Oak , a forest tree indigenous in North America....
from the inner bark of oak
Oak
An oak is a tree or shrub in the genus Quercus , of which about 600 species exist. "Oak" may also appear in the names of species in related genera, notably Lithocarpus...
s native to North America and fustic from the dyer's mulberry tree (Maclura tinctoria) of the West Indies and Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
.
In rivercane basketweaving among Southeastern tribes
Southeastern tribes
Southeastern Woodlands peoples or Southeastern cultures are an ethnographic classification for Indigenous peoples that have traditionally inhabited the Southeastern United States and the northeastern border of Mexico, that share common cultural traits....
, butternut (Juglans cinerea) and yellow root (Xanthorhiza simplicissima) provide a rich yellow color. Chitimacha
Chitimacha
The Chitimacha are a Native American federally recognized tribe that lives in the U.S. state of Louisiana, mainly in St. Mary Parish. They currently number about 720 people. The Chitimacha language is a language isolate.- History :The Chitimacha's historic home was the southern Louisiana coast...
basket weavers have a complex formula for yellow that employs a dock plant (most likely Rumex crispus) for yellow. Navajo artists create yellow dyes from small snake-weed
Gutierrezia
Gutierrezia is a genus of flowering plants in the sunflower family. Plants of this genus are known generally as snakeweeds or matchweeds. There are about 25 species found in North and South America. These plants contain chemical compounds which can be toxic to livestock and some are considered weeds...
and brown onion skins, and rubber plant
Parthenium incanum
Parthenium incanum is a plant in the genus Parthenium of the family Asteraceae.-Human uses:...
(Parthenium incanum
Parthenium incanum
Parthenium incanum is a plant in the genus Parthenium of the family Asteraceae.-Human uses:...
). Rabbitbush
Chrysothamnus
Chrysothamnus is a member of the plant family Asteraceae. It is a semi-deciduous shrub, sometimes also called sagebrush. The native distribution is in the arid western United States and northern Mexico...
(Chrysothamnus
Chrysothamnus
Chrysothamnus is a member of the plant family Asteraceae. It is a semi-deciduous shrub, sometimes also called sagebrush. The native distribution is in the arid western United States and northern Mexico...
) and rose hip
Rose hip
The rose hip, or rose haw, is the fruit of the rose plant, that typically is red-to-orange, but ranges from dark purple to black in some species. Rose hips begin to form in spring, and ripen in late summer through autumn.-Usage:...
s produce pale, yellow-cream colored dyes.
Greens
If plants that yield yellow dyes are common, plants that yield green dyes are rare. Both woad and indigo have been used since ancient times in combination with yellow dyes to produce shades of green. MedievalMiddle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...
and Early Modern
Early modern period
In history, the early modern period of modern history follows the late Middle Ages. Although the chronological limits of the period are open to debate, the timeframe spans the period after the late portion of the Middle Ages through the beginning of the Age of Revolutions...
England was especially known for its green dyes. The dyers of Lincoln
Lincoln, Lincolnshire
Lincoln is a cathedral city and county town of Lincolnshire, England.The non-metropolitan district of Lincoln has a population of 85,595; the 2001 census gave the entire area of Lincoln a population of 120,779....
, a great cloth town in the high Middle Ages
High Middle Ages
The High Middle Ages was the period of European history around the 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries . The High Middle Ages were preceded by the Early Middle Ages and followed by the Late Middle Ages, which by convention end around 1500....
, produced the Lincoln green
Lincoln green
Lincoln green is the color of dyed woollen cloth associated with Robin Hood and his merry men in Sherwood Forest, Nottinghamshire. The dyers of Lincoln, a cloth town in the high Middle Ages, produced the cloth by dyeing it with woad to give it a strong blue, then overdyeing it yellow with weld or...
cloth associated with Robin Hood
Robin Hood
Robin Hood was a heroic outlaw in English folklore. A highly skilled archer and swordsman, he is known for "robbing from the rich and giving to the poor", assisted by a group of fellow outlaws known as his "Merry Men". Traditionally, Robin Hood and his men are depicted wearing Lincoln green clothes....
by dyeing wool with woad and then overdyeing it yellow with weld or dyer's greenweed (Genista tinctoria
Genista tinctoria
Genista tinctoria, with common names: Dyer's Broom, Dyer’s Greenweed, Dyer's Whin, Furze, Greenbroom, Greenweed, Waxen Woad, Woad Waxen and Waxen Wood, is a plant species of the genus Genista.-Description:...
), also known as dyer's broom. Woolen cloth mordanted with alum and dyed yellow with dyer's greenweed was overdyed with woad and, later, indigo, to produce the once-famous Kendal green. This in turn fell out of fashion in the 18th century in favor of the brighter Saxon green, dyed with indigo and fustic.
Soft olive greens are also achieved when textiles dyed yellow are treated with an iron mordant. The dull green cloth common to the Iron Age Halstatt culture shows traces of iron, and was possibly colored by boiling yellow-dyed cloth in an iron pot. Indigenous peoples of the Northwest Plateau in North America used lichen to dye corn husk bags a beautiful sea green.
Navajo textile artist Nonabah Gorman Bryan developed a two-step process for creating green dye. First the Churro wool yarn is dyed yellow with sagebrush
Sagebrush
Sagebrush is a common name of a number of shrubby plant species in the genus Artemisia native to western North America;Or, the sagebrush steppe ecoregion, having one or more kinds of sagebrush, bunchgrasses and others;...
, Artemisia tridentata
Artemisia tridentata
Artemisia tridentata is a shrub or small tree from the family Asteraceae. Some botanists treat it in the segregate genus Seriphidium, as S. tridentatum W. A. Weber, but this is not widely followed...
, and then it is soaked in black dye afterbath. Red onion skins are also used by Navajo dyers to produce green.
Blues
Blue colorants around the world were derived from indigo dyeIndigo dye
Indigo dye is an organic compound with a distinctive blue color . Historically, indigo was a natural dye extracted from plants, and this process was important economically because blue dyes were once rare. Nearly all indigo dye produced today — several thousand tons each year — is synthetic...
-bearing plants, primarily those in the genus Indigofera
Indigofera
Indigofera is a large genus of about 700 species of flowering plants belonging to the family Fabaceae.The species are mostly shrubs, though some are herbaceous, and a few can become small trees up to tall. Most are dry-season or winter deciduous. The leaves are pinnate with 5–31 leaflets and the...
, which are native to the tropics
Tropics
The tropics is a region of the Earth surrounding the Equator. It is limited in latitude by the Tropic of Cancer in the northern hemisphere at approximately N and the Tropic of Capricorn in the southern hemisphere at S; these latitudes correspond to the axial tilt of the Earth...
. The primary commercial indigo
Indigo
Indigo is a color named after the purple dye derived from the plant Indigofera tinctoria and related species. The color is placed on the electromagnetic spectrum between about 420 and 450 nm in wavelength, placing it between blue and violet...
species in Asia was true indigo (Indigofera tinctoria
Indigofera tinctoria
Indigofera tinctoria bears the common name True indigo. The plant was one of the original sources of indigo dye. It has been naturalized to tropical and temperate Asia, as well as parts of Africa, but its native habitat is unknown since it has been in cultivation worldwide for many centuries. Today...
). India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
is believed to be the oldest center of indigo dyeing in the Old World. It was a primary supplier of indigo dye to Europe as early as the Greco-Roman era. The association of India with indigo is reflected in the Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
word for the dye, which was indikon (ινδικόν). The Romans
Ancient Rome
Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....
used the term indicum, which passed into Italian dialect and eventually into English as the word indigo.
In Central
Central America
Central America is the central geographic region of the Americas. It is the southernmost, isthmian portion of the North American continent, which connects with South America on the southeast. When considered part of the unified continental model, it is considered a subcontinent...
and South America
South America
South America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...
, the important blue dyes were Añil (Indigofera suffruticosa) and Natal indigo (Indigofera arrecta).
In temperate climates including Europe, indigo was obtained primarily from woad (Isatis tinctoria), an indigenous plant of Assyria
Assyria
Assyria was a Semitic Akkadian kingdom, extant as a nation state from the mid–23rd century BC to 608 BC centred on the Upper Tigris river, in northern Mesopotamia , that came to rule regional empires a number of times through history. It was named for its original capital, the ancient city of Assur...
and the Levant
Levant
The Levant or ) is the geographic region and culture zone of the "eastern Mediterranean littoral between Anatolia and Egypt" . The Levant includes most of modern Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Israel, the Palestinian territories, and sometimes parts of Turkey and Iraq, and corresponds roughly to the...
which has been grown in Northern Europe over 2,000 years, although from the 18th century it was mostly replaced by superior Indian indigo imported by the British East India Company
British East India Company
The East India Company was an early English joint-stock company that was formed initially for pursuing trade with the East Indies, but that ended up trading mainly with the Indian subcontinent and China...
. Woad was carried to New England
New England
New England is a region in the northeastern corner of the United States consisting of the six states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut...
in the 17th century and used extensively in America until native stands of indigo were discovered in Florida and the Carolinas. In Sumatra
Sumatra
Sumatra is an island in western Indonesia, westernmost of the Sunda Islands. It is the largest island entirely in Indonesia , and the sixth largest island in the world at 473,481 km2 with a population of 50,365,538...
, indigo dye is extracted from some species of Marsdenia
Marsdenia
Marsdenia is a genus of plant in family Apocynaceae. It is named in honor of the plant collector and Secretary of the Admiralty, William Marsden.Species include:* Marsdenia australis* Marsdenia brachyloba* Marsdenia cavaleriei...
. Other indigo-bearing dye plants include dyer's knotweed (Polygonum tinctorum
Polygonum tinctorum
Persicaria tinctoria H.Gross is Chinese indigo, a plant of the Buckwheat family that is found from Eastern Europe to East Asia, and whose...
) from Japan and the coasts of China, and the West African shrub Lonchocarpus cyanescens.
Purples
In medievalMiddle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...
Europe, purple, violet, murrey
Murrey
In heraldry, murrey is a "stain", an occasionally used tincture.According to dictionaries, murrey is the colour of mulberries, somewhere between gules and purpure , almost maroon; but examples registered in Canada and Scotland show it as a reddish brown.The Flag of the Second Spanish Republic was...
and similar colors were produced by dyeing wool with woad or indigo in the fleece and then piece-dyeing the woven cloth with red dyes, either the common madder or the luxury dyes kermes
Kermes (dye)
Kermes is a red dye derived from the dried bodies the females of a scale insect in the genus Kermes, primarily Kermes vermilio. The insects live on the sap of certain trees, especially Kermes oak tree near the Mediterranean region...
and cochineal
Cochineal
The cochineal is a scale insect in the suborder Sternorrhyncha, from which the crimson-colour dye carmine is derived. A primarily sessile parasite native to tropical and subtropical South America and Mexico, this insect lives on cacti from the genus Opuntia, feeding on plant moisture and...
. Madder could also produce purples when used with alum. Brazilwood
Brazilwood
Caesalpinia echinata is a species of Brazilian timber tree in the pea family, Fabaceae. Common names include Brazilwood, Pau-Brasil, Pau de Pernambuco and Ibirapitanga . This plant has a dense, orange-red heartwood that takes a high shine, and it is the premier wood used for making bows for...
also gave purple shades with vitriol (sulfuric acid
Sulfuric acid
Sulfuric acid is a strong mineral acid with the molecular formula . Its historical name is oil of vitriol. Pure sulfuric acid is a highly corrosive, colorless, viscous liquid. The salts of sulfuric acid are called sulfates...
) or potash.
Choctaw artists traditionally used maple (Acer sp.) to create lavender and purple dyes. Purples can also be derived from lichen
Lichen
Lichens are composite organisms consisting of a symbiotic organism composed of a fungus with a photosynthetic partner , usually either a green alga or cyanobacterium...
s, and from the berries of White Bryony
White Bryony
White Bryony is a vigorous vine with major destructive potential to native vegetation, forest communities, vineyards, and farmland...
from the northern Rocky Mountain states and mulberry (morus nigra) (with an acid mordant).
Browns
CutchCatechu
For the region in India, see Kutch District.Catechu is an extract of any of several species of Acacia—but especially Acacia catechu—produced by boiling the wood in water and evaporating the resulting brew....
is an ancient brown dye from the wood of acacia trees, particularly Acacia catechu
Acacia catechu
Acacia catechu also commonly called Mimosa catechu, is a deciduous, thorny tree which grows up to in height. The plant is called khair in Hindi, and kachu in Malay, hence the name was Latinized to "catechu" in Linnaean taxonomy, as the type-species from which the extracts cutch and catechu are...
, used in India for dyeing cotton
Cotton
Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective capsule, around the seeds of cotton plants of the genus Gossypium. The fiber is almost pure cellulose. The botanical purpose of cotton fiber is to aid in seed dispersal....
. Cutch gives gray-browns with an iron mordant and olive-browns with copper.
Black walnut
Black Walnut
Juglans nigra, the Eastern Black walnut, is a species of flowering tree in the hickory family, Juglandaceae, that is native to eastern North America. It grows mostly in riparian zones, from southern Ontario, west to southeast South Dakota, south to Georgia, northern Florida and southwest to central...
(Juglans nigra) is used by Cherokee artists to produce a deep brown approaching black. Today black walnut is primarily used to dye baskets but has been used in the past for fabrics and deerhide. Juniper, Juniperus monosperma
Juniperus monosperma
Juniperus monosperma is a species of juniper native to western North America, in the United States in Arizona, New Mexico, southern Colorado, western Oklahoma , and western Texas, and in Mexico in the extreme north of Chihuahua...
, ashes provide brown and yellow dyes for Navajo people
Navajo people
The Navajo of the Southwestern United States are the largest single federally recognized tribe of the United States of America. The Navajo Nation has 300,048 enrolled tribal members. The Navajo Nation constitutes an independent governmental body which manages the Navajo Indian reservation in the...
, as do the hulls of wild walnuts (Juglans major
Juglans major
Juglans major is a walnut tree which grows to with a DBH of up to at elevations of 1000–7000 ft in Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Arizona, and Utah. Common names include Arizona Walnut and Nogal....
).
Greys and blacks
Choctaw dyers use maple (Acer sp.) for a grey dye. Navajo weavers create black from mineral yellow ochreOchre
Ochre is the term for both a golden-yellow or light yellow brown color and for a form of earth pigment which produces the color. The pigment can also be used to create a reddish tint known as "red ochre". The more rarely used terms "purple ochre" and "brown ochre" also exist for variant hues...
mixed with pitch from the piñon tree (Pinus edulis) and the three-leaved sumac (Rhus trilobata
Rhus trilobata
Rhus trilobata is a shrub in the sumac genus with the common names sourberry, skunkbush, and three-leaf sumac. It is native to the western half of Canada and the Western United States, from the Great Plains to California and south through Arizona extending into northern Mexico...
). They also produce a cool grey dye with blue flower lupin
Lupin
Lupinus, commonly known as Lupins or lupines , is a genus in the legume family . The genus comprises about 280 species , with major centers of diversity in South and western North America , and the Andes and secondary centers in the Mediterranean region and Africa Lupinus, commonly known as Lupins...
e and a warm grey from Juniper mistletoe (Phoradendron juniperinum
Phoradendron juniperinum
Phoradendron juniperinum is a species of flowering plant in the sandalwood family known by the common name juniper mistletoe. It is native to the southwestern United States from Oregon to Texas and the northern states of Mexico, where it grows in various types of woodland habitat.This mistletoe...
).
Lichen
Dye-bearing lichenLichen
Lichens are composite organisms consisting of a symbiotic organism composed of a fungus with a photosynthetic partner , usually either a green alga or cyanobacterium...
produce a wide range of greens, oranges, yellows, reds, browns, and bright pinks and purples. The lichen Rocella tinctoria was found along the Mediterranean Sea and was used by the ancient Phoenicia
Phoenicia
Phoenicia , was an ancient civilization in Canaan which covered most of the western, coastal part of the Fertile Crescent. Several major Phoenician cities were built on the coastline of the Mediterranean. It was an enterprising maritime trading culture that spread across the Mediterranean from 1550...
ns. In recent times, lichen dyes have been an important part of the dye traditions of Wales
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
, Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
, Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
, and among native peoples of the southwest and Intermontane Plateaus
Intermontane Plateaus
Physiographic regions of the U.S. InteriorSee:legendIn some places,high plateaus lie between the mountain ranges, for example,the plateau of Anatolia in Turkey and the plateau of Tibet.These are called "Intermontane plateaus"....
of the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. Scottish lichen dyes
Traditional dyes of the Scottish Highlands
Traditional dyes of the Scottish Highlands are thenative vegetable dyes used in Scottish Gaeldom.The following are the principal dyestuffs with the colours they produce. Several of the tints are very bright, but have now been superseded by various mineral dyes. The Latin names are given where known...
include cudbear (also called archil
Orcein
Orcein, also archil, orchil, lacmus, Citrus Red 2, and C.I. Natural Red 28, are names for dyes extracted from several species of lichen, commonly known as "orchella weeds", found in various parts of the world. A major source is the archil lichen, Roccella tinctoria. Orcinol is extracted from such...
in England and litmus
Litmus
Litmus or litmus test may refer to:* Litmus test, a common pH test* Litmus , a test case management tool maintained by Mozilla* "Litmus" , an episode in the first season of the television series...
in Holland), and crottle.
Fungi
Miriam C. Rice, (1918—2010) of Mendocino, CaliforniaMendocino, California
Mendocino is a census-designated place in Mendocino County, California, United States. Mendocino is located south of Fort Bragg, at an elevation of 154 feet...
, pioneered research into using various mushrooms for natural dyes. She discovered mushroom dye
Mushroom dye
Mushrooms can be used to create color dyes.The shingled hedgehog mushroom and related species contain blue-green pigments, which are used for dyeing wool in Norway. The fruiting body of hydnellum peckii can be used to produce a beige colour when no mordant is used, and shades of blue or green...
s for a complete rainbow palette. Swedish and American mycologists, building upon Rice's research, have discovered sources for true blues (Sarcodon squamosus
Sarcodon squamosus
Sarcodon squamosus is a species of fungus in the genus Sarcodon....
) and mossy greens (Hydnellum geogenium). Hypholoma fasciculare
Hypholoma fasciculare
Hypholoma fasciculare, commonly known as the sulphur tuft, sulfur tuft or clustered woodlover, is a common woodland mushroom, often in evidence when hardly any other mushrooms are to be found...
provides a yellow dye, and fungi such as Phaeolus schweinitzii
Phaeolus schweinitzii
Phaeolus schweinitzii, commonly known as velvet-top fungus, dyer's polypore,Norway Chicken, or dyer's mazegill, is a fungal plant pathogen that causes butt rot on conifers such as Douglas-fir, spruce, fir, hemlock, pine, and larch. P...
and Pisolithus tinctorius
Pisolithus tinctorius
Known in Australia as the horse dung fungus and in Europe as the Bohemian truffle, Pisolithus tinctorius is a widespread earth-ball like fungus, which may in fact be several closely related species....
are used in dying textiles and paper.
Luxury dyestuffs
Royal purple
The premier luxury dye of the ancient world was Tyrian purpleTyrian purple
Tyrian purple , also known as royal purple, imperial purple or imperial dye, is a purple-red natural dye, which is extracted from sea snails, and which was possibly first produced by the ancient Phoenicians...
or royal purple, a purple-red dye which is extracted from several genera of sea snail
Snail
Snail is a common name applied to most of the members of the molluscan class Gastropoda that have coiled shells in the adult stage. When the word is used in its most general sense, it includes sea snails, land snails and freshwater snails. The word snail without any qualifier is however more often...
s, primarily the spiny dye-murex Murex brandaris (currently known as Bolinus brandaris). Murex dye was greatly prized in antiquity because it did not fade, but instead became brighter and more intense with weathering and sunlight. Murex dyeing may have been developed first by the Minoan
Minoan civilization
The Minoan civilization was a Bronze Age civilization that arose on the island of Crete and flourished from approximately the 27th century BC to the 15th century BC. It was rediscovered at the beginning of the 20th century through the work of the British archaeologist Arthur Evans...
s of East Crete or the West Semites along the Levant
Levant
The Levant or ) is the geographic region and culture zone of the "eastern Mediterranean littoral between Anatolia and Egypt" . The Levant includes most of modern Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Israel, the Palestinian territories, and sometimes parts of Turkey and Iraq, and corresponds roughly to the...
ine coast, and heaps of crushed murex shells have been discovered at a number of locations along the eastern Mediterranean dated to the mid-2nd millennium BCE. The classical dye known as Phoenician Red was also derived from murex snails.
Murex dyes were fabulously expensive - one snail yields but a single drop of dye - and the Roman Empire
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
imposed a strict monopoly on their use from the reign of Alexander Severus
Alexander Severus
Severus Alexander was Roman Emperor from 222 to 235. Alexander was the last emperor of the Severan dynasty. He succeeded his cousin Elagabalus upon the latter's assassination in 222, and was ultimately assassinated himself, marking the epoch event for the Crisis of the Third Century — nearly fifty...
(225–235 CE) that was maintained by the succeeding Byzantine Empire
Byzantine Empire
The Byzantine Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire during the periods of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, centred on the capital of Constantinople. Known simply as the Roman Empire or Romania to its inhabitants and neighbours, the Empire was the direct continuation of the Ancient Roman State...
until the Early Middle Ages
Early Middle Ages
The Early Middle Ages was the period of European history lasting from the 5th century to approximately 1000. The Early Middle Ages followed the decline of the Western Roman Empire and preceded the High Middle Ages...
. The dye was used for imperial manuscripts on purple parchment
Purple parchment
Purple parchment or Codex Purpureus refers to manuscripts written on parchment dyed purple, originally restricted for the use of Roman or Byzantine Emperors. The lettering may be in gold or silver. Later the practice was revived for some especially grand illuminated manuscripts produced for the...
, often with text in silver or gold, and porphyrogenitos
Porphyrogenitos
Porphyrogénnētos, Latinized as Porphyrogenitus was an honorific title given to a son, or daughter , of a reigning emperor in the Byzantine Empire. However, not every imperial prince or princess was accorded this distinction...
or "born in the purple
Born in the purple
Traditionally, born in the purple was a term used to describe members of royal families although the term was later expanded to include all children born of prominent or high ranking parents. The parents must be prominent at the time of the child's birth so that the child is always in the spotlight...
" was a term for Byzantine offspring of a reigning Emperor. The color matched the increasing rare purple rock porphyry
Porphyry (geology)
Porphyry is a variety of igneous rock consisting of large-grained crystals, such as feldspar or quartz, dispersed in a fine-grained feldspathic matrix or groundmass. The larger crystals are called phenocrysts...
, also associated with the imperial family.
Crimson and scarlet
Tyrian purple retained its place as the premium dye of Europe until it was replaced "in status and desirability" by the rich crimsonCrimson
Crimson is a strong, bright, deep red color. It is originally the color of the dye produced from a scale insect, Kermes vermilio, but the name is now also used as a generic term for those slightly bluish-red colors that are between red and rose; besides crimson itself, these colors include...
reds and scarlets of the new silk
Silk
Silk is a natural protein fiber, some forms of which can be woven into textiles. The best-known type of silk is obtained from the cocoons of the larvae of the mulberry silkworm Bombyx mori reared in captivity...
-weaving
Weaving
Weaving is a method of fabric production in which two distinct sets of yarns or threads are interlaced at right angles to form a fabric or cloth. The other methods are knitting, lace making and felting. The longitudinal threads are called the warp and the lateral threads are the weft or filling...
centers of Italy, colored with kermes
Kermes (dye)
Kermes is a red dye derived from the dried bodies the females of a scale insect in the genus Kermes, primarily Kermes vermilio. The insects live on the sap of certain trees, especially Kermes oak tree near the Mediterranean region...
. Kermes is extracted from the dried unlayed eggs of the insect Kermes vermilio
Kermes vermilio
Kermes vermilio is one of the species of Kermes used to make the dye also called kermes.....
or Kermococcus vermilio found on species of oak
Oak
An oak is a tree or shrub in the genus Quercus , of which about 600 species exist. "Oak" may also appear in the names of species in related genera, notably Lithocarpus...
(especially the Kermes oak
Kermes Oak
Quercus coccifera, the Kermes Oak, is an oak in the Turkey oak section Quercus sect. Cerris. It is native to the western Mediterranean region and Northern African Maghreb, from Morocco and Portugal east to Libya and Greece.-Description:...
of the Mediterranean region). The dye is of ancient origin; jars of kermes have been found in a Neolithic cave-burial at Adaoutse, Bouches-du-Rhône
Bouches-du-Rhône
Bouches-du-Rhône is a department in the south of France named after the mouth of the Rhône River. It is the most populous department of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region. Its INSEE and postal code is 13.-History of the department:...
. Similar dyes are extracted from the related insects Porphyrophora hamili of the Caucasus
Caucasus
The Caucasus, also Caucas or Caucasia , is a geopolitical region at the border of Europe and Asia, and situated between the Black and the Caspian sea...
region, Coccus polonicus (Polish cochineal
Polish cochineal
Polish cochineal , also known as Polish carmine scales, is a scale insect formerly used to produce a crimson dye of the same name, colloquially known as "Saint John's blood". The larvae of P...
or Saint John's blood) of Eastern Europe, and the lac
Lac
Lac is the scarlet resinous secretion of a number of species of insects, namely some of the species of the genera Metatachardia, Laccifer, Tachordiella, Austrotacharidia, Afrotachardina, and Tachardina of the superfamily Coccoidea, of which the most commonly cultivated species is Kerria lacca.The...
-producing insects of India, Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia, South-East Asia, South East Asia or Southeastern Asia is a subregion of Asia, consisting of the countries that are geographically south of China, east of India, west of New Guinea and north of Australia. The region lies on the intersection of geological plates, with heavy seismic...
, China, and Tibet
Tibet
Tibet is a plateau region in Asia, north-east of the Himalayas. It is the traditional homeland of the Tibetan people as well as some other ethnic groups such as Monpas, Qiang, and Lhobas, and is now also inhabited by considerable numbers of Han and Hui people...
.
When kermes-dyed textiles achieved prominence around the mid-11th century, the dyestuff was called "grain" in all Western European languages because the desiccated eggs resemble fine grains of wheat or sand. Textiles dyed with kermes were described as dyed in the grain. Woollens were frequently dyed in the fleece with woad and then piece-dyed in kermes, producing a wide range colors from from blacks and grays through browns, murrey
Murrey
In heraldry, murrey is a "stain", an occasionally used tincture.According to dictionaries, murrey is the colour of mulberries, somewhere between gules and purpure , almost maroon; but examples registered in Canada and Scotland show it as a reddish brown.The Flag of the Second Spanish Republic was...
s, purples, and sanguine
Sanguine
Sanguine is chalk of a reddish color, often called the true colour of blood. tending to brown, used in drawing, The word also describes any drawing done in sanguine.-Technique:...
s. By the 14th and early 15th century, brilliant full grain kermes scarlet was "by far the most esteemed, most regal" color for luxury woollen textiles in the Low Countries
Low Countries
The Low Countries are the historical lands around the low-lying delta of the Rhine, Scheldt, and Meuse rivers, including the modern countries of Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and parts of northern France and western Germany....
, England, France, Spain and Italy.
Cochineal
Cochineal
The cochineal is a scale insect in the suborder Sternorrhyncha, from which the crimson-colour dye carmine is derived. A primarily sessile parasite native to tropical and subtropical South America and Mexico, this insect lives on cacti from the genus Opuntia, feeding on plant moisture and...
(Dactylopius coccus) is a scale insect
Scale insect
The scale insects are small insects of the order Hemiptera, generally classified as the superfamily Coccoidea. There are about 8,000 species of scale insects.-Ecology:...
of Central
Central America
Central America is the central geographic region of the Americas. It is the southernmost, isthmian portion of the North American continent, which connects with South America on the southeast. When considered part of the unified continental model, it is considered a subcontinent...
and North America
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
from which the crimson
Crimson
Crimson is a strong, bright, deep red color. It is originally the color of the dye produced from a scale insect, Kermes vermilio, but the name is now also used as a generic term for those slightly bluish-red colors that are between red and rose; besides crimson itself, these colors include...
-coloured dye carmine
Carmine
Carmine , also called Crimson Lake, Cochineal, Natural Red #4, C.I. 75470, or E120, is a pigment of a bright-red color obtained from the aluminum salt of carminic acid, which is produced by some scale insects, such as the cochineal beetle and the Polish cochineal, and is used as a general term for...
is derived. It was used by the Aztec
Aztec
The Aztec people were certain ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those groups who spoke the Nahuatl language and who dominated large parts of Mesoamerica in the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries, a period referred to as the late post-classic period in Mesoamerican chronology.Aztec is the...
and Maya
Maya civilization
The Maya is a Mesoamerican civilization, noted for the only known fully developed written language of the pre-Columbian Americas, as well as for its art, architecture, and mathematical and astronomical systems. Initially established during the Pre-Classic period The Maya is a Mesoamerican...
peoples. Moctezuma
Moctezuma II
Moctezuma , also known by a number of variant spellings including Montezuma, Moteuczoma, Motecuhzoma and referred to in full by early Nahuatl texts as Motecuhzoma Xocoyotzin, was the ninth tlatoani or ruler of Tenochtitlan, reigning from 1502 to 1520...
in the 15th century collected tribute in the form of bags of cochineal dye. Soon after the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire cochineal began to be exported to Spain, and by the seventeenth century it was a commodity traded as far away as India. During the colonial period the production of cochineal (in Spanish, grana fina) grew rapidly. Produced almost exclusively in Oaxaca
Oaxaca, Oaxaca
The city and municipality of Oaxaca de Juárez, or simply Oaxaca, is the capital and largest city of the Mexican state of the same name . It is located in the Centro District in the Central Valleys region of the state, in the foothills of the Sierra Madre at the base of the Cerro del Fortín...
by indigenous producers, cochineal became Mexico's second most valued export after silver. Cochineal produces purplish colors alone and brilliant scarlets when mordanted with tin, and cochineal, which produced a stronger dye and could thus be used in smaller quantities, replaced kermes dyes in general use in Europe from the 17th century.
The rise of formal black
During the course of the 15th century, the civic records show brilliant reds falling out of fashion for civic and high-status garments in the Duchy of BurgundyDuchy of Burgundy
The Duchy of Burgundy , was heir to an ancient and prestigious reputation and a large division of the lands of the Second Kingdom of Burgundy and in its own right was one of the geographically larger ducal territories in the emergence of Early Modern Europe from Medieval Europe.Even in that...
in favor of dark blues, greens, and most importantly of all, black. The origins of the trend for somber colors are elusive, but are generally attributed to the growing influence of Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
and possibly the importation of Spanish merino
Merino
The Merino is an economically influential breed of sheep prized for its wool. Merinos are regarded as having some of the finest and softest wool of any sheep...
wools. The trend spread in the next century: the Low Countries, German states
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, Scandinavia
Scandinavia
Scandinavia is a cultural, historical and ethno-linguistic region in northern Europe that includes the three kingdoms of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, characterized by their common ethno-cultural heritage and language. Modern Norway and Sweden proper are situated on the Scandinavian Peninsula,...
, England, France, and Italy all absorbed the sobering and formal influence of Spanish dress after the mid-1520s.
Producing fast black in the Middle Ages was a complicated process involving multiple dyeings with woad or indigo followed by mordanting, but at the dawn of Early Modern period
Early modern period
In history, the early modern period of modern history follows the late Middle Ages. Although the chronological limits of the period are open to debate, the timeframe spans the period after the late portion of the Middle Ages through the beginning of the Age of Revolutions...
, a new and superior method of dyeing black dye reached Europe via Spanish conquests in the New World. The new method used logwood (Haematoxylum campechianum), a dyewood native to Mexico and Central America. Although logwood was poorly received at first, producing a blue inferior to that of woad and indigo, it was discovered to produce a fast black in combination with a ferrous sulfate (copperas) mordant. Despite changing fashions in color, logwood was the most widely used dye by the 19th century, providing the sober blacks of formal and mourning
Mourning
Mourning is, in the simplest sense, synonymous with grief over the death of someone. The word is also used to describe a cultural complex of behaviours in which the bereaved participate or are expected to participate...
clothes.
Decline and rediscovery
The first synthetic dyes were discovered in the mid-19th century, starting with William Henry Perkin's mauveineMauveine
Mauveine, also known as aniline purple and Perkin's mauve, was the first synthetic organic chemical dye.Its chemical name is3-amino-2,±9-dimethyl-5-phenyl-7-phenazinium acetate...
in 1856, an aniline dye derived from coal tar
Coal tar
Coal tar is a brown or black liquid of extremely high viscosity, which smells of naphthalene and aromatic hydrocarbons. Coal tar is among the by-products when coal iscarbonized to make coke or gasified to make coal gas...
. Alizarin
Alizarin
Alizarin or 1,2-dihydroxyanthraquinone is an organic compound with formula that has been used throughout history as a prominent dye, originally derived from the roots of plants of the madder genus.Alizarin was used as a red dye for the English parliamentary "new model" army...
, the red dye present in madder, was the first natural pigment to be duplicated synthetically, in 1869, leading to the collapse of the market for naturally grown madder. The development of new, strongly colored aniline dyes followed quickly: a range of reddish-purples, blues, violets, greens and reds became available by 1880. These dyes had great affinity for animal fibers such as wool and silk. The new colors tended to fade and wash out, but they were inexpensive and could be produced in the vast quantities required by textile production in the industrial revolution
Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution was a period from the 18th to the 19th century where major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, transportation, and technology had a profound effect on the social, economic and cultural conditions of the times...
. By the 1870s commercial dyeing wth natural dyestuffs was fast disappearing.
At the same time the Pre-Raphaelite artist and founding figure of the Arts and Crafts movement
Arts and Crafts movement
Arts and Crafts was an international design philosophy that originated in England and flourished between 1860 and 1910 , continuing its influence until the 1930s...
William Morris
William Morris
William Morris 24 March 18343 October 1896 was an English textile designer, artist, writer, and socialist associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and the English Arts and Crafts Movement...
took up the art of dyeing as an adjunct to his manufacturing business, the design firm of Morris & Co.
Morris & Co.
Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co. and its successor Morris & Co. were furnishings and decorative arts manufacturers and retailers founded by the Pre-Raphaelite artist and designer William Morris...
Always a medievalist at heart, Morris loathed the colors produced by the fashionable aniline dyes. He spent much of his time at his Staffordshire
Staffordshire
Staffordshire is a landlocked county in the West Midlands region of England. For Eurostat purposes, the county is a NUTS 3 region and is one of four counties or unitary districts that comprise the "Shropshire and Staffordshire" NUTS 2 region. Part of the National Forest lies within its borders...
dye works mastering the processes of dyeing with plant materials and making experiments in the revival of old or discovery of new methods. One result of these experiments was to reinstate indigo dyeing as a practical industry and generally to renew the use of natural dyes like madder which had been driven almost out of use by the commercial success of the anilines. Morris saw dyeing of wools, silks, and cottons as the necessary preliminary to the production of woven and printed fabrics of the highest excellence; and his period of incessant work at the dye-vat (1875–76) was followed by a period during which he was absorbed in the production of textiles (1877–78), and more especially in the revival of carpet- and tapestry
Tapestry
Tapestry is a form of textile art, traditionally woven on a vertical loom, however it can also be woven on a floor loom as well. It is composed of two sets of interlaced threads, those running parallel to the length and those parallel to the width ; the warp threads are set up under tension on a...
-weaving as fine arts. Morris & Co. also provided naturally dyed silks for the embroidery
Embroidery
Embroidery is the art or handicraft of decorating fabric or other materials with needle and thread or yarn. Embroidery may also incorporate other materials such as metal strips, pearls, beads, quills, and sequins....
style called art needlework
Art needlework
Art needlework was a type of surface embroidery popular in the later nineteenth century under the influence of the Pre-Raphaelites and the Arts and Crafts Movement....
.
Scientists continued to search for new synthetic dyes that would be effective on cellulose
Cellulose
Cellulose is an organic compound with the formula , a polysaccharide consisting of a linear chain of several hundred to over ten thousand β linked D-glucose units....
fibers like cotton and linen, and that would be more colorfast on wool and silk than the early anilines. Chrome or mordant dyes produced a muted but very fast color range for woollens. These were followed by acid dye
Acid dye
An acid dye is a dye, in chemical regard a sodium salt of a sulfonic, carboxylic or phenol organic acid. Acid dye is soluble in water and possesses affinity for amphoteric fibers while lacking direct dyes' affinity for cellulose fibers. When dyeing, ionic bonding with fiber cationic sites accounts...
s for animal fibers (from 1875) and the synthesis of indigo in Germany in 1880. The work on indigo led to the development of a new class of dyes called vat dye
Vat dye
Vat dyes are an ancient class of dyes, based on the natural dye, indigo, which is now produced synthetically.-Overview:The process "vat dyeing" refers to dyeing in a bucket or vat. It can be performed whenever a liquid, even shade over the entire garment is desired. Almost any dye can be used,...
s in 1901 that produced a wide range of fast colors for vegetable fibers. Disperse dyes were introduced in 1923 to color the new textiles of cellulose acetate
Cellulose acetate
Cellulose acetate , first prepared in 1865, is the acetate ester of cellulose. Cellulose acetate is used as a film base in photography, as a component in some adhesives, and as a frame material for eyeglasses; it is also used as a synthetic fiber and in the manufacture of cigarette filters and...
, which could not be colored with any existing dyes. Today disperse dyes are the only effective means of coloring many synthetics. Reactive dye
Reactive dye
In a reactive dye a chromophore contains a substituent that is activated and allowed to directly react to the surface of the substrate. Reactive dyes have good fastness properties owing to the bonding that occurs during dyeing....
s for both wool and cotton were introduced in the mid-1950s, and are used both in commercial textile production and in craft dyeing.
In America, synthetic dyes became popular among a wide range of Native American textile artists; however, natural dyes remained in use, as many textile collectors prefer natural dyes over synthetics. Today, dyeing with natural materials is often practiced as an adjunct to hand spinning
Spinning (textiles)
Spinning is a major industry. It is part of the textile manufacturing process where three types of fibre are converted into yarn, then fabric, then textiles. The textiles are then fabricated into clothes or other artifacts. There are three industrial processes available to spin yarn, and a...
, knitting
Knitting
Knitting is a method by which thread or yarn may be turned into cloth or other fine crafts. Knitted fabric consists of consecutive rows of loops, called stitches. As each row progresses, a new loop is pulled through an existing loop. The active stitches are held on a needle until another loop can...
and weaving
Weaving
Weaving is a method of fabric production in which two distinct sets of yarns or threads are interlaced at right angles to form a fabric or cloth. The other methods are knitting, lace making and felting. The longitudinal threads are called the warp and the lateral threads are the weft or filling...
. It remains a living craft in many traditional cultures of North America, Africa, Asia, and the Scottish Highlands.