Up until the mid-19th century, almost all dyes were made from materials found in plants (indigo, woad, woad, madder, brazilwood, tumeric and others), animals (shellfish purple, cochineal), and minerals.  While these dyes could produce an amazing range of colours, there were still some colours that couldn’t be produced by natural means, and some of the colours that could be produced by natural means were inclined to run, fade, or to destroy the very fabrics they dyed. Then,  in 1856 William Henry Perkin, a young chemistry student, working at home, after hours, in a makeshift laboratory, trying to create a chemically identical artificial version of quinine (a very valuable plant-based drug which was used to treat malaria), thought to experiment with the results of another failed attempt. The result of his experiment on his experiment was mauveine (also known as Perkin’s mauve, aniline purple, harmaline,Tyrian purple, plain old mauve, and, if you want to be extremely technical, 3-amino-2, ±9-dimethyl-5-phenyl-7-(p-tolylamino)phenazinium acetate).  Mauveine was  a combination of aniline (a common extract of coal tar) and other compounds which … Continue reading Terminology: What are aniline dyes? (or, the history of mauve and mauveine)