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CHEMISTRY

THE COLOURFUL CHEMISTRY OF

ARTIFICIAL DYES
Published: 9 April 2019

In the 21st century, we're used to having a full spectrum of

colours in our wardrobes and around our homes. But we
owe this cheap availability of a variety of colours to
discoveries in chemistry over the last 200 years, which
started a synthetic dye boom.

The synthetic dye boom started with mauveine, the purple dye discovered in 1856
by 18-year-old chemist William Henry Perkin.

Within decades synthetic dyes were available in almost any shade you could
imagine—bringing with them a fashion revolution, but also environmental
consequences. 

THE MARKET FOR EARLY SYNTHETIC

DYES
Before mauveine and other artificial colours, natural products were used for
centuries to dye materials.

Natural dyes have a rich, long and colourful history. However, as European
imperial powers colonised the world, the natural resources of other countries
were plundered to meet the European appetite for coloured fabrics. 
 Extracts from the leaves of Indigofera tinctoria made the eponymous indigo dye.
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Cochineal insects native to the Americas became the sought-after scarlet dye
carmine. 

The synthetic dye mauveine, too, was entangled in the story of European colonial
aggression. Under the instruction of August Wilhelm von Hofmann (1818–1892),
William Henry Perkin had been experimenting with aniline, a colourless aromatic
oil derived from coal tar, in an attempt to synthesise quinine.  

Quinine, a natural product derived from the bark of the cinchona tree, was in
demand because of its antimalarial properties. Having an antidote to malaria
would strengthen Europe’s colonial grip. 

But instead of synthesising quinine, Perkin discovered how to make the purple
dye mauveine. 

Indigo factory in Allahabad, India, 5 October 1877, by Oscar Mallitte.

Science Museum Group Collection

MAUVEINE
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Details on a dress dyed with Perkin's mauveine dye, 1862-63.

Science Museum Group Collection

Image source

Although not the first chemist to make an artificial dye from aniline, Perkin was
astute enough to realise the commercial potential of his purple product.
 Tyrian purple was an ancient dye, very expensive because the shells of thousands
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of murex sea snails produced only a tiny amount. Wearing purple was therefore
favoured by the wealthy as a mark of high social status.

Perkin initially called his mauveine 'Tyrian purple'. As the author Simon Garfield

has noted, this shows Perkin was deliberately referencing the ancient murex dye
in order to give his synthetic dye greater market appeal.

Empress Eugénie of France (1826–1920), a leader of fashion, also favoured the

colour. Ultimately Perkin settled on the name mauveine because the word mauve
was then associated with Parisian haute couture.

By August 1859, according to the satirical magazine Punch, London had

succumbed to 'the mauve measles'.

Mauveine made Perkin a fortune and other chemists followed suit. Perkin’s
research supervisor Hofmann, who had at first criticised his student for leaving
his quinine researches to pursue the commercial manufacture of artificial dyes,
later synthesised his own aniline dye, rosaniline. 

Silk skirt and blouse dyed with William Henry Perkin's mauve aniline dye, England,
1862-1863.
More about this object

WHY USE ANILINE?

Aniline is a starting material for many industrial chemical products, including
synthetic dyes and agricultural chemicals. It can be extracted from coal tar, which
was a big waste product in the 19th century, making it readily available to
chemists.
 According to historian Laura Kalba, the explosion of aniline dyes onto the market
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led to an era of fashion characterised by chromatic vibrancy and variety, contrary
to the staid images of Victorian fashions conjured up by the monochrome
photographs we associate with the era. The success of the chemists’ aniline dyes
allowed for a kaleidoscope of colour in the fashionable world.

Take a closer look at an early synthetic dye sample in our collection:

The secret origins of purple dye

Enter the Science Museum's object stores with curator Hattie Lloyd.

DRAWBACKS TO THE NEW ARTIFICIAL

DYES
There was a crucial problem with the aniline dyes—they were liable to fade.
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Skein of faded thread dyed with mauveine, c.1860

Science Museum Group Collection

Image source

In 1882, William Morris (1834–1896), whose ideas greatly influenced the Arts
and Crafts movement, even accused the artificial aniline dyes “of destroying all
beauty” in the art of dyeing. 

One of his main criticisms was how easily the dyes faded:

The fading of the new dyes is a change into all kinds of

abominable and livid hues.

William Morris

Enter Scottish textile manufacturer James Morton (1867–1943) who, along with

his wife Beatrice Emily (née Fagan, 1871–1958), was a disciple of the Arts and
Crafts Movement. The Mortons furnished their house with hand-crafted oak
furniture and wallpaper designed by Morris and Charles Francis Annesley Voysey.
 In 1897, James contracted Voysey to design woven textiles exclusively for the
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Morton company for a minimum of five years.

One day around 1904, Morton was walking along Regent Street in London to
check on his wares in Liberty’s shop window. He was dismayed to discover that
the colours on his tapestries had faded beyond recognition. He was even more
shocked to learn that his tapestries had only been on display for a little over a
week.

DEVELOPING FAST DYES NOT FADING

DYES
James Morton resolved to make 'fast dyes' that would not fade, even if that meant
sacrificing the variety of colours available to the consumer.

He sent out sample testcards of dyed fabric to his brother-in-law, Patrick Fagan,
who was working for the British colonial civil service in India, with instructions to
leave the fabric exposed to direct sunlight for weeks and even months at a time. 

Two dye fastness tests exposed to sunlight in India, by Alexander Morton and Company,
1905–1915.
Science Museum Group
More information

Morton’s testcards demonstrated that some dyes fared better than others on
exposure to sunlight. Based on the results of his investigation, Morton employed a
young Scottish chemist named John Christie to synthesise dyes based on the
chemical structures that had proved to be more stable to sunlight.

Morton named these dyes 'Sundour': dour in Scots can translate to stubborn or
hard to move—Morton’s dyes were “sun stubborn.”
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Page from a leaflet advertising Sundour unfadable colours, early 20th century.

Science Museum Group Collection

HOW FAST DYES INFLUENCED FASHION

AND DESIGN
Morton sold his fast-dyed textiles to high-end fashion houses like Burberry, who
marketed his products on the promise that the dyes were 'indelible'. The adverts
that Burberry placed for the fabrics in high-society magazines The Queen and The
Field in the spring of 1913 even mentioned the tests Morton ran in India.
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Advert for 'indelible' dyes by Burberry. 

Science Museum Group Collection
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Testimonials from Morton’s customers evidence their satisfaction. In 1928, one

couple sent the company a Sundour-dyed curtain that had been purchased for
their yacht in 1913—this curtain had weathered the sea spray and sun throughout
the First World War, had been washed, and had still retained its colour.

Morton described his colour palette as 'modest' compared to the variety of hues
that had been made available by the aniline dyes of the late-19th century. He even
reverted to using older mineral dyes for light brown and buff colours, as he found
them to be more permanent than their artificial counterparts.

Morton and his modest palette of fast dyes served as a foil to the seemingly
unending variety of bright but impermanent artificial dyes of the previous
century.

THE LEGACY OF SYNTHETIC DYEING

TODAY
Many of James Morton’s dyes and the processes used to manufacture them would
now be classed as environmentally harmful. Indeed, the textile industry today
continues to use chemicals that are harmful to the environment in its pursuit of
fast fashion. The World Bank estimates that up to 20% of global water pollution
results from textile dyeing and treatment.

But there are chemists out there who are attempting to make more sustainable
dyes. For example, a team at the University of Cambridge is making dyes that are
non-toxic, biodegradable and durable.

Turning away from artificial aniline dyes and back to nature, the group is inspired
not by natural pigments, but by the way light interacts with stacks of transparent
layers: they make dyes that mimic the innate structural colour of the green dock
beetle, the blue Pollia berry and even bacteria. 

FIND OUT MORE ABOUT FASHION AND SYNTHETIC

DYES

Online:
 Science Museum blog, Can a colourful future be sustainable? 
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Science and Industry Museum blog, The world's first synthetic dye 
Racked, The history of green dye is a history of death
Maryland Historical Society, The dyes of death
Open University, The birth of (synthetic) dyeing
Scientific American, Dye me a river: How a Revolutionary
Textile Coloring Compound Tainted a Waterway [Excerpt]
99% Invisible podcast, The Secret Lives of Colour

Books:

David, Alison Matthews. Fashion Victims: The dangers of dress past and
present. London: Bloomsbury, 2015. 
Garfield, Simon. Mauve: How One Man Invented a Colour that Changed the
World. London: Faber and Faber, 2000. 
Balfour-Paul, Jenny. Indigo: Egyptian Mummies to Blue Jeans. London:
British Museum Press, 2012. 
Dean, Jenny. A Heritage of Colour. Tunbridge Wells: Search Press, 2014. 
Edmonds, John. Tyrian or Imperial Purple Dye: The Mystery of Imperial
Purple Dye. High Wycombe: John Edmonds, 2000.
Kalba, Laura Anne. Color in the Age of Impressionism: Commerce,
Technology, and Art. University Park, PA, USA: The Pennsylvania State
University Press, 2017. 
Morton, Jocelyn. Three Generations in a Family Textile Firm. London:
Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1971. 

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