The first fabric dyes came from plants, minerals, or…

… animals.  In other words – from nature.  Until the 1850’s, only natural dyes were used around the world.

The predominant dyes used in ancient times were:

Indigo – blue/purple from the leaves of dyer’s woad herb “isatis tinctoria”, and the indigo plant “indigofera tinctoria”;

Alizarin – red from the madder plant;

Kermes & cochineal – reds from scale insects;

Tyrian Purple – purple from glands of snails for only those in high office like kings and emperors because  1.4 grams of dye took 12,000 snails to make;

Weld, quercetin, oak, and carotenoids – yellows to reds from the leaves or in the case of cartenoids the compounds in green plants;

Logwood – initially red but transforms to charcoal, gray, or black and largely used for silk and leather

(photo: natural dyes on wool that were available during the Civil War)