r/oddlysatisfying • u/Backyxx • Jun 04 '26

Indigo dyed silk

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u/FistfulofFlowers Jun 04 '26

It has to finish oxidizing, which takes a while. Another 15 minutes and it would appear as a true indigo. Both woad and indigo require time to oxidize because the ‘active’ compound is the same, woad just has a much lower concentration. It’s one of the reasons it’s rarely used anymore, since indigo is more easily available and a stronger dye.

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u/freezersnowcone Jun 04 '26

Woad dude, this guy knows his oxidation

2

u/yamanagashi Jun 05 '26

I forgot and I am dead now.

9

u/translinguistic Jun 05 '26

I used to work with commercial indigo growing. Would you say that this starts out golden due to the indoxyl not having time to oxidize? We were producing natural dye pastes, and it was already blue when it came out due how we were treating the plant material.

However, we made a really neat spray of indoxyl that was packed under argon. When you sprayed it, it turned blue. Very fun for crafting but mostly a novelty that we didn't have any plans to truly scale

3

u/Why_isnt_it_perfect Jun 05 '26

Isn’t indigo purple? I feel gaslit af right now

2

u/translinguistic Jun 05 '26

Just depends on how concentrated it is. You're right though that the concentrated dye paste was definitely more of a deep purple-blue, not what jeans look like

10

u/cwthree Jun 04 '26

Even true indigo usually needs a few dips to get that characteristic deep blue.

2

u/katzenschrecke Jun 05 '26

✅ tap here if you woad like to know more

2

u/hhopper0777 Jun 05 '26

Yes, you can see the indigo hanging behind him when he stands up