This dye is extracted from plants of the genus Indigofera, of the family Fabaceae and the species suffructicosa mill.
Indigo dye was used in Mesopotamia and by the ancient Greeks and Romans (the Greek word Indikon means “Indian substance”).
In the 13th C. Marco Polo was the first to document the process of making indigo dye in India, and the plant was brought to Europe by Vasco de Gama in 1498. For many years it was regarded as “the king of dyes”, and it is what gives blue denim jeans their colour.
The chemical compound is called indigotin, and the German chemist J.F.W. Adolf Von Baeyer was the first to synthesise it in the laboratory in 1880.
OLD WOOD’s Indigo is an excellent complement to clear yellow hues such as Cosmos Yellow and the Weld Indian Yellow), adding the spirituality of blue to the warmth of the yellow.
