Once the reaction is ready, then carefully add this stock solution to a container of water to create the vat. We have found it easier to build a vat if you mix these ingredients in a smaller container and let them react. Indigo Stock Solution (also called a Starter or Mother): Indigo is dependent on a balanced blend of indigo powder, a base or alkali such as calcium hydroxide, and a reducing agent, such as fructose or henna. The higher the gpL, the darker the vat will be. Grams per Liter (gpL): An expression used to determine the amount of indigo in a vat. An excellent resource about the history of indigo is Jenny Balfour-Paul’s book Indigo: Egyptian Mummies to Blue Jeans. Cultivation acreage plummeted and within 20 years only a fraction of the indigo used worldwide was from natural sources. The color was synthesized around 1880 by Alfred Bayer and shortly after the world indigo market collapsed as manufacturers switched to the new miracle synthetic dye. European colonizers forced Bengali and indigenous workers to grow indigo under horrible conditions, resulting in worker uprisings and revolts. Indigo was a valued historical crop and grown and tended by enslaved people in the US. Indigo was used to dye shrouds for Egyptian burials, uniforms for Napoleon’s Army, prestige cloth for African chiefs and to dye denim for blue jeans. It is the only natural plant-based blue and its colorant is present in other plants, including woad ( Isatis tinctoria), Japanese indigo, ( Persicaria tinctoria, a buckwheat) and Strobilanthes cusia, a distant cousin to the ornamental Persian Shield that you can buy at Home Depot. Indigo: Indigo is a pigment from the leaves of the indigo plant called Indigofera tinctoria, one of the oldest dyes known to humankind.
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