Description
MADDER EXTRACT is a red natural dye manufactured from madder (Rubia tinctorum L.) roots.
This extract is perfect on wool and silk, more pink on other fibers.
Main constituents : Alizarin as a free from or linked to a sugar (ruberythric acid). The free alizarin provides more red shades; ruberythric acid provides more orange shades. This extract contains both forms of natural colouring agents.
Uses :
Textile dyeing & printing on natural fibers : Madder extract is the plant extract of European source the most used for natural pinks and red shades. It can be used on any fiber and combined with all mordants and many other dye extracts to obtain a very wide color range (orange, purple, “bronze”, browns, …)
The plant :
Madder is one of the oldest dye plants used. Its scientific name means “dyer’s red”. It was well known and classified as “Grand teint” for its good lightfastness. The words “rouge garance” and “garance” entered the current french vocabulary.
Native from the Middle East, it was introduced in Europe since the Antiquity where it was intensively grown in several areas from the Middle Ages, as Flanders, Holland, the North, East and South of France where it brought prosperity at these times.
