Woad – The Mysterious Blue Vegetable Dye
Woad is famous for being the source of the blue dye that has been used to dye wool and other fibers for several thousand years in Europe and the Middle East. Pigment is extracted from dark greenish-blue fluff leaves, similar to spinach.
Woad’s plant
Woad (Isatis tinctoria) is native to the Mediterranean and belongs to the Cruciferae family, more commonly known as brassicas, and is closely related to broccoli, cabbage, and rapeseed. Woad grows easily and is considered a noxious weed in some states in the US.
Woad is a biennial plant and grows for two years before dying. In the first year, it forms a clump of low-growing leaves like spinach. The leaves are harvested for dye production in the first year only, because they have little to no color when they reach the second year.
In the second year, the leaves get longer and thinner and the fluff plant looks quite different. Produces tall stems up to five to six feet tall with small neon yellow flower sprays. The flowers, which appear in May, have a wonderful fragrance and attract many bees. The black seeds that follow are winged, resembling small tongues, and after producing seeds, the plant dies.
Woad blues
Dyeing with woad is very exciting. The wool or fabric is dipped in the tub, left for a few minutes, and then removed. At first, the wool is pale yellow in color, but with exposure to air, the color gradually turns green and then blue. This color change never fails to fascinate viewers.
Woad is also very inexpensive; 10 grams of wool pigment, for example, dyes more than 200 grams of wool a beautiful medium blue, and at least another 100 grams of wool a light blue.
Traditionally, a fermentation vat was used for waffle dyeing, often starting with stale urine. Fermentation removes oxygen from the tub and makes the pigment soluble. Today, chemicals such as spectralite are often used to remove oxygen from the tub.
Woad and the ancient Brits
Woad is native to the Mediterranean, native to Turkey and the Middle East, from where it spread to Europe and has been used as a dye plant since the Neolithic, 5 to 10,000 years ago.
Many people have heard that when Julius Caesar’s army invaded Britain in 55 BC. C., the Romans saw the Picts painted blue with glas. There is great controversy regarding this claim, as it is unlikely that the Roman army, which was mainly in the south, ever encountered Picts living in northern Scotland. Also, woad is difficult to use as a body paint and is not suitable for tattoos.
Woad as an anticancer agent
It is not just a blue dye that can be extracted from the icing; the waffle plant has also become a weapon in the fight against breast cancer. Recent research has found that this plant has 20 times more anti-cancer chemical glucobrassicin than broccoli. The chemical is difficult to extract from broccoli, so icing provides an effective alternative. Woad can produce even more of this chemical if young leaves are damaged. However, do not try to eat waffle, as this plant is not edible.
Wearing wadding
Have you heard the song Woad? The last stanza goes like this;
March on Snowdon with your scythe on
It doesn’t matter if it rains or snows
I never want to sew a button.
Forward, old Brits!
Today, there is enough information available on the internet to allow you to grow your own fabric, extract the blue pigment, dye some local wool, and knit a blue scarf to wear the next time you climb Snowdon (or the local mountain peak). ).