I was looking into natural colorants and figured woad might hold up in CP because you need to use alkalies from ashes to extract it. Of course you can also get that color from indigo. It's the same exact chemical responsible for the color of each. Indigotin is actually quite cheap. I can pick it up at my local apothecary, and
yet I have this crazy urge to buy woad seeds, grow them, crush and allow the leaves to ferment, then precipitate the dye using soda ash I get from burning saltwort plants. You would think making CP soap was challenge enough, but I can't stop having fantasies of extracting my own woad. Has any one else here done this?
Oh, while I was in Costa Rica there was a plant called Genipa that had a soluble version of indigotin in the fruit. Once it met the air and oxidized it turned a deep blue. Everyone on the expedition painted themselves. I chose jaguar spots over every inch of my body, which I was wearing for the rest of the trip and several weeks into the semester. It made for an interesting conversation at US customs. At least it probably distracted them from all the orchids I smuggled back.
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