Cochineal and carmine
Crushed cactus bugs made the reddest red of the old world, and they're still in your lipstick.
- Made from
- Dactylopius coccus insects
- Insects per pound
- About 70,000
- Food code
- E120
Cochineal is a small scale insect that lives on prickly pear cactus in Mexico and Peru. The females make carminic acid, up to about a fifth of their dry weight, to fend off predators. Dried and crushed, they give a brilliant crimson, sold as carmine. It takes around 70,000 insects to make a pound of dye. People in the Americas were using it by the 2nd century BCE, and Aztec tribute lists record towns paying in bags of cochineal.
After the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire, cochineal crossed the Atlantic in the 1520s and became New Spain's second most valuable export after silver. It was stronger than Europe's old insect red, kermes, and replaced it. Dyers made scarlets and crimsons, including for British soldiers' red coats, and painters used it as carmine, a red 'lake' pigment.
Lake pigments like carmine fade in light, a weakness already known in the 1400s. Many old paintings have lost their reds, which is why some skies and fabrics look different from what the painter mixed. Van Gogh described the walls of his Bedroom as pale violet; in the painting they now look blue, because a red pigment in the mix has faded.
Carmine never left. Like saffron, it still colors food, and cosmetics too, labeled E120 or 'natural red 4', which surprises vegetarians. Peru is now the biggest producer. The app's carmine and crimson come from this dye's names.
Swatches
- Carmine · cochineal lake
- Crimson · cochineal-dyed silk (approx.)
Colors
Sources
- Greenfield, A. B. (2005). A Perfect Red: Empire, Espionage, and the Quest for the Color of Desire. HarperCollins.
- Van Gogh Museum. The Bedroom: research into faded colors.
- Wikipedia, 'Cochineal'.
Hex values are screen approximations. Every page lists its sources.