However, as the botanic name tinctorius indicates, it best known as a dye plant. To extract the yellow for coloring food saffron yellow the plant just needs to be steeped in a mildly acidic solution like a soup broth. To dye cloth or fiber yellow, the petals need to soaked in a mild vinegar solution. Bobbi McRae in COLORS FROM NATURE recommends a cup of vinegar to a gallon of water. Like madder, heat is the enemy of good color extraction in safflower, so just soak the petals over night in the vinegar water or make a sun tea of everything and let it sit for a few days in the sun.Strain out the petals working them a bit to extract the last of the yellow.
To obtain the red within the petals wash the last of the yellow out (after the vinegar extraction) with water agitating them a bit. Strain. Then place the washed petals in fresh water and add some ammonina, or washing soda to create a basic solution as opposed to an acidic one. Again like madder, a basic solution helps extract the red tones in the plant matter. Soak overnight or as a sun tea. If in a rush, you can heat the solution to 150 degrees F, but proceed very cautiously. Safflower seems to like heat even less than madder if you want to extract a nice red tone.
Protein fibers like silk and wool dye wonderful rich tones with safflower. Cotton and other cellulose (plant) fibers will dye a more pastel shade.
So give safflower a try and see what poor man's saffron can do for your dyer's palette.
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