It Takes That Much?

 I just finished an article on Cochineal.  Its a but that lives and dies on a cactus plant in Mexico. This insect is what was used to produce red dies back in the 17th and 18th centuries in Europe. I read of an incident where the Earl of Essex captured a Spanish Galleon containing 27 tons of this dye.

It takes 70,000 insects to make one pound and another 2000 to make a ton.  So it took 70,000 x 2000 x 27 or 3,780,000,000 bugs for that shipment.

So I wondered about natural dyes in general and what it took to get a pound or how to calculate the amount needed and talk about math and its uses.  It is definitely used here.  According to one site, the amount of dye material (plants, etc) for natural dying is based on the amount of fabric you  wish to dye.  It is referred to as WOF or weight of fabric.

For instance if you want to dye some fabric a medium red using madder, it has a 50% WOF so if you want to dye one pound of cotton, you would need half a pound or 8 oz of madder.  On the other hand if you wanted to use Cochineal (an insect that provides a red dye, you'd use 6 percent Cochineal to one pound of fabric or about one ounce of dye.

According to another site, it is recommended one use equal amounts of plant material as fabric so if you want to dye one pound of fabric, you'd use one pound of plants. The plants are chopped up and  heated in water for a couple of hours.  I saw a suggestion of equal parts of plants and water to get a good dye.

In addition, there are mordants used in dyeing. Mordants help prepare the cloth for dyeing and the final color depends on the mordant.  Some examples are:

1. Aluminum Sulfate or Alum is 12 percent of the weight of the fabric or 2 ounces per pound of fabric.

2. Cream of Tarter about 6 percent of the weight of the fabric or about 1 ounce per pound of fabric.

3.  Iron via old rusty nails is set at 1/2 ounce of iron to 500 grams of fiber.

There are other mordants but many of them are rather toxic and most are 1 ounce per pound of fabric.

There are also fixatives which help set the dye.

1.  Salt is set at one part to 16 parts water.

2. Vinegar is used at one part per four parts of water.  I use this if I think something I just bought might need this treatment.

3. Baking soda requires  1/2 cup per gallon of water.

So dyeing using natural plants, etc use a lot of math.  As you can see, there are ratios and percentages involved.  This is real life math because any dyer who uses natural plants, etc have to use this math.  Let me know what you think, I'd love to hear.  Have a great day.