WOAD
Woad is derived from a plant, Isatis tinctoria, growing in the North of France and in England. It was the only blue dye in the West before Indigo was introduced from India. Since then woad has been little used except as a fermenting agent for the indigo vat. It dyes woollen cloth a greenish colour which changes to a deep blue in the air. It is said to be inferior in colour to indigo but the colour is much more permanent. The leaves when cut are reduced to a paste, kept in heaps for about fifteen days to ferment, and then formed into balls which are dried in the sun; these have a rather agreeable smell and are of a violet colour. These balls are subjected to a further fermentation of 9 weeks before being used by the dyer. When woad is now used it is always in combination with Indigo, to improve the colour. Even by itself, however, it yields a good and very permanent blue.
It is not now known how the ancients prepared the blue dye, but it has been stated (Dr. Plowright) that woad leaves when covered with boiling water, weighted down for half-an-hour, the water then poured off, treated with caustic potash and subsequently with hydrochloric acid, yield a good Indigo blue. If the time of infusion be increased, greens and browns are obtained. It is supposed that woad was "vitrum," the dye with which Cæsar said almost all the Britons stained their bodies. It is said to grow near Tewkesbury, also Banbury. It was cultivated till quite lately in Lincolnshire. There were four farms in 1896; one at Parson Drove, near Wisbech, two farms at Holbeach, and one near Boston. Indigo has quite superseded it in commerce.[14]
"It is like the Indigo plant, but less delicate and rich. It is put in vats with Indigo and madder to dye a never-fading dark blue on wool, and was called woad-vats before Indigo was known." (Thomas Love). And again "Woad, or what is much stronger, pastel, always dyed the blue woollens of Europe until Indigo was brought over here."
Bancroft says "Woad alone dyes a blue colour very durable, but less vivid and beautiful than that of Indigo."
(Bois de Campêche, Campeachy Wood)
Logwood is a dye wood from Central America, used for producing blues and purples on wool, black on cotton and wool, and black and violet on silk. It is called by the old dyers, one of the Lesser Dyes, because the colour loses all its brightness when exposed to the air. But with proper mordants and with careful dyeing this dye can produce fast and good colours. Queen Elizabeth's government issued an enactment entirely forbidding the use of logwood. The act is entitled "An Act for the abolishing of certeine deceitful stuffe used in the dyeing of clothes," and it goes on to state that "Whereas there hath been brought from beyond the seas a certeine kind of stuff called logwood, alias blockwood, wherewith divers dyers," etc., and "Whereas the clothes therewith dyed, are not only solde and uttered to the great deceit of the Queene's loving subjects, but beyond the seas, to the great discredit and sclaunder of the dyers of this realme. For reformation whereof, be it enacted by the Queene our Soveraygne Ladie, that all such logwood, in whose handes soever founde, shall be openly burned by authoritie of the maior." The person so offending was liable to imprisonment and the pillory. This is quoted from "The Art of Dyeing," by James Napier, written in 1853. He goes on to say, "Upwards of eighty years elapsed before the real virtues of this dyeing agent were acknowledged; and there is no dyewood we know so universally used, and so universally useful." The principal use for logwood is in making blacks and greys. The logwood chips should be put in a bag and boiled for 20 minutes to ½ hour, just before using. "Logwood is used with galls and copperas for the various shades of greys, inclining to slate, lavender, dove, and lead colour, etc. For this purpose you fill a cauldron full of clean water, putting into it as much nut galls as you think proper. You then add a bag of logwood, and when the whole is boiled, having cooled the liquor, you immerse the stuff, throwing in by degrees some copperas, partly dissolved in water."—Hellot. Hellot is very scornful of logwood, naming it as one of the lesser dyes, and not to be used by good dyers.
RECIPES FOR DYEING with LOGWOOD
1). Black for Cotton.—