Naturally colored cotton is cotton that has been bred to have colors other than the yellowish off-white typical of modern commercial cotton fibres. Colors grown include red, green and several shades of brown. [1] The cotton's natural color does not fade.
This form of cotton also feels softer to the skin and has a pleasant smell. Naturally colored Cotton is still relatively rare because it requires specialized harvest techniques and facilities, making it more expensive to harvest than white cotton. By the 1990s, most indigenous colored cotton landraces or cultivars grown in Africa, Asia, and Central and South America were replaced by all-white, commercial varieties.
Naturally colored cotton is believed to have originated in the Americas around 5000 years ago in the Andes. [2] Naturally colored cotton today mostly comes from pre-Columbian stocks created by the indigenous peoples of South America (Vreeland, 1999). Mochica Indians could be credited with growing naturally colored cotton of many hues, which they maintained for over the last two millennia on the northern coast of Peru. [2]
Natural color in cotton comes from pigments found in cotton; these pigments can produce shades ranging from tan to green and brown. [3] Naturally pigmented green cotton derives its color from caffeic acid, a derivative of cinnamic acid, found in the suberin (wax) layer which is deposited in alternating layers with cellulose around the outside of the cotton fiber. This fiber helps your skin by protecting it by the UV rays from the sun. [4] While green-colored cotton comes from wax layers, brown and tan cotton derive their color from tannin vacuoles in the lumen of the fiber cells. [3]
The naturally colored cotton has a small fiber and is not suitable for heavy machine spinning. During World War II an insufficient supply of dye led to the cultivation of green and brown cotton in the Soviet Union. [2] The US government also showed interest in cultivation of naturally colored cotton but later aborted the project due to low yield and short staple length. [2]
“Later on US government instructed a famous agronomist, J.O.Ware, to study the Soviet cotton plants to determine whether they were commercially viable in the U.S. Ware and his colleagues concluded that the green and brown cotton plants yielded too little lint that was too short in staple length. Colored cotton was officially regulated to obscurity. Only in a few places were people still entranced by its possibilities.” [2]
Due to the smaller fiber, it becomes unpractical to use naturally colored cotton for clothing manufacture. [5] But sometimes colored cotton is mixed in with conventional white cotton to make its fiber longer and stronger than other naturally colored cotton, to be used in typical looms. Since this hybrid cotton fiber is stronger, it is being used by Levi Strauss, L.L. Bean, Eileen Fisher, and Fieldcrest for clothes using khaki cloth. [5]
Commercial cultivation still continues in South America as many big US companies such as Patagonia, Levi Strauss, and Esprit are buying naturally grown cotton along with white cotton which requires significant amount of insecticides and pesticides. [2]
In 1982, Sally Fox a graduate in Integrated Pest Management from University of California started researching colored cotton, integrated her knowledge and experience in technology and introduced the first long fiber of naturally colored cotton. [4] [6] Sally Fox later started her company, Natural Cotton Colors, Inc. and obtained patents in different shades including: green, coyote brown, buffalo brown, and Palo Verde green under FoxFiber. [4]
Later on, the technology was further improved by cotton breeder Raymond Bird in 1984. Bird began experimenting in Reedley, California, with red, green, and brown cotton to improve fiber quality. Later on Raymond Bird, along with his brother and C. Harvey Campbell Jr., a California agronomist and cotton breeder, formed BC Cotton Inc. to work with naturally colored cottons. Naturally colored cotton usually come in four standard colors - green, brown, red (a reddish brown) and mocha (similar to tan). [4]
There is experimental evidence to demonstrate that naturally pigmented cottons, especially green cotton, have excellent sun protection properties, when compared with unbleached white cotton that needs to be treated with dyes or finishes to obtain similar properties. [3] It is hypothesized that the pigments in naturally pigmented cotton fibers are present to provide protection from ultraviolet radiation for the embryonic cotton seeds, however they can also provide protection from the sun’s harmful rays for consumers who wear garments manufactured from these naturally pigmented fibers. [3] The UPF values of the naturally pigmented cottons examined in a university study remained high enough, even after 80 AFUs (AATCC Fading Units)of light exposure and repeated laundering, that the fabrics merited sun protection ratings of “good” to “very good” according to ASTM 6603 voluntary labeling guidelines for UV-protective textiles. [3]
Naturally colored cotton is different from white cotton as it does not need to be dyed. [7] According to agronomists, the cost of dyeing could be up to half of the cost, and not dyeing is also environmentally friendly, as it eliminates disposal costs for toxic dye waste. Naturally colored cotton is also resistant to deterioration as compared with the conventional dyed white cotton. After laundering, the color becomes stronger and more intense, a characteristic documented during research studies at Texas Tech University. The length of time required to "bring out" the color varies with color and variety. Eventually, the colors may start to return to their original color. Some naturally colored cotton darkens with exposure to the sun. However, green is less stable and fades to tan when exposed to sunlight. [7]
Due to the non-industrialized product, naturally colored cottons yield less per acre, but growers are paid higher prices for their harvest. In 1993, colored cotton prices ranged from $3.60 to $4.50 per pound compared to conventional white cotton at $0.60 to $0.90 per pound. [7]
A dye is a colored substance that chemically bonds to the substrate to which it is being applied. This distinguishes dyes from pigments which do not chemically bind to the material they color. Dye is generally applied in an aqueous solution and may require a mordant to improve the fastness of the dye on the fiber.
Indigo is a term used for a number of hues in the region of blue. The word comes from the ancient dye of the same name. The term "indigo" can refer to the color of the dye, various colors of fabric dyed with indigo dye, a spectral color, one of the seven colors of the rainbow as described by Newton, or a region on the color wheel, and can include various shades of blue, ultramarine, and green-blue. Since the web era, the term has also been used for various purple and violet hues identified as "indigo", based on use of the term "indigo" in HTML web page specifications.
Brown is a color. It can be considered a composite color, but it is mainly a darker shade of orange. In the CMYK color model used in printing and painting, brown is usually made by combining the colors orange and black.
Magenta is a purplish-red color. On color wheels of the RGB (additive) and CMY (subtractive) color models, it is located precisely midway between blue and red. It is one of the four colors of ink used in color printing by an inkjet printer, along with yellow, cyan, and black to make all the other colors. The tone of magenta used in printing, printer's magenta, is redder than the magenta of the RGB (additive) model, the former being closer to rose.
A pigment is a powder used to add color or change visual appearance. Pigments are completely or nearly insoluble and chemically unreactive in water or another medium; in contrast, dyes are colored substances which are soluble or go into solution at some stage in their use. Dyes are often organic compounds whereas pigments are often inorganic. Pigments of prehistoric and historic value include ochre, charcoal, and lapis lazuli.
Human hair color is the pigmentation of human hair follicles and shafts due to two types of melanin: eumelanin and pheomelanin. Generally, the more melanin present, the darker the hair. Its tone depends on the ratio of black or brown eumelanin to yellow or red pheomelanin. Melanin levels can vary over time, causing a person's hair color to change, and one person can have hair follicles of more than one color. Some hair colors are associated with some ethnic groups because of the observed higher frequency of particular hair colors within their geographical region, e.g. straight, dark hair amongst East Asians, Southeast Asians, Polynesians, some Central Asians, and Native Americans; a large variety of dark, fair, curly, straight, wavy or bushy amongst Europeans, West Asians, some Central Asians, and North Africans; and curly, dark, and uniquely helical hair amongst Sub Saharan Africans. Bright red hair is found in some European populations, and hair turns gray, white, or "silver" with age.
Hair coloring, or hair dyeing, is the practice of changing the color of the hair on humans' heads. The main reasons for this are cosmetic: to cover gray or white hair, to alter hair to create a specific look, to change a color to suit preference or to restore the original hair color after it has been discolored by hairdressing processes or sun bleaching.
Bay is a hair coat color of horses, characterized by a reddish-brown or brown body color with a black point coloration on the mane, tail, ear edges, and lower legs. Bay is one of the most common coat colors in many horse breeds.
At right is displayed the color traditionally called liver.
Dyeing is the application of dyes or pigments on textile materials such as fibers, yarns, and fabrics with the goal of achieving color with desired color fastness. Dyeing is normally done in a special solution containing dyes and particular chemical material. Dye molecules are fixed to the fiber by absorption, diffusion, or bonding with temperature and time being key controlling factors. The bond between the dye molecule and fiber may be strong or weak, depending on the dye used. Dyeing and printing are different applications; in printing, color is applied to a localized area with desired patterns. In dyeing, it is applied to the entire textile.
Kermes is a red dye derived from the dried bodies of the females of a scale insect in the genus Kermes, primarily Kermes vermilio. The Kermes insects are native in the Mediterranean region and are parasites living on the sap of the host plant, the Kermes oak and the Palestine oak.
Horses exhibit a diverse array of coat colors and distinctive markings. A specialized vocabulary has evolved to describe them.
In clothing, heather refers to a color effect created by mixing two or more different colored fibers or yarns. It is interwoven yarns of mixed colors, and possibly the type of fiber, producing another color. It is typically used to mix multiple shades of grey or grey with another color to produce a muted shade, but any two colors can be mixed, including bright colors. A mixed fabric color is achieved by using different colors of fiber and mixing them together. Black and white fiber mixed will combine to give grey heather fiber. Heather is blended fibers combined to create a multicolored effect. Heather effect is also known as melange effect.
The cochineal is a scale insect in the suborder Sternorrhyncha, from which the natural dye carmine is derived. A primarily sessile parasite native to tropical and subtropical South America through North America, this insect lives on cacti in the genus Opuntia, feeding on plant moisture and nutrients. The insects are found on the pads of prickly pear cacti, collected by brushing them off the plants, and dried.
The color magenta has notable tints and shades. These various colors are shown below.
Stil de grain yellow or sap green is a pigment derived from berries of the buckthorn species Rhamnus saxatilis, which are commonly called Avignon berries or Persian berries after two historical areas of supply; latterly Italy was a major source. The color, whose principal chemical component is rhamnetin, was formerly called pink ; latterly, to distinguish it from light red "pink", the yellow "pink" was qualified as Dutch pink, brown pink, English pink, Italian pink, or French pink — the first three also applied to similar quercitron dyes from the American eastern black oak, Quercus velutina. Other names are Persian berries lake, yellow berries and buckthorn berries.
Natural dyes are dyes or colorants derived from plants, invertebrates, or minerals. The majority of natural dyes are vegetable dyes from plant sources—roots, berries, bark, leaves, and wood—and other biological sources such as fungi.
Dyeing is the craft of imparting colors to textiles in loose fiber, yarn, cloth or garment form by treatment with a dye. Archaeologists have found evidence of textile dyeing with natural dyes dating back to the Neolithic period. In China, dyeing with plants, barks and insects has been traced back more than 5,000 years. Natural insect dyes such as Tyrian purple and kermes and plant-based dyes such as woad, indigo and madder were important elements of the economies of Asia and Europe until the discovery of man-made synthetic dyes in the mid-19th century. Synthetic dyes quickly superseded natural dyes for the large-scale commercial textile production enabled by the Industrial Revolution, but natural dyes remained in use by traditional cultures around the world.
Wet Processing Engineering is one of the major streams in Textile Engineering or Textile manufacturing which refers to the engineering of textile chemical processes and associated applied science. The other three streams in textile engineering are yarn engineering, fabric engineering, and apparel engineering. The processes of this stream are involved or carried out in an aqueous stage. Hence, it is called a wet process which usually covers pre-treatment, dyeing, printing, and finishing.
Sally Fox is a cotton breeder who breeds naturally colored varieties of cotton. She is the inventor of Foxfibre®️ and founder of the company Natural Cotton Colors Inc. Fox invented the first species of environmentally friendly colored cotton that could be spun into thread on a machine.