Shepherd Textiles Cochineal Natural Dye, 1 oz.

What a beautiful dye - gorgeous color, highly concentrated - classic true cochineal!

Clean, quality cochineal. Made a beautiful dye for my daughter’s “natural dyes” school project.

I used this for a BSA scout badge to show the scouts how to color fabric. They loved the idea of it being made of real bugs and it served its purpose, it dyed the fabric.

This is an interesting substance to work with, as it starts off looking like tough, dehydrated granules. I crushed them using a mortar and pestle, but found, after putting the powder in fluid, that it was not ground finely enough, even yet. Research revealed that the pH of the liquid used as the medium for this dye will affect what different colors will be obtained from it, so look that up before mixing it. Yes, it's bugs. Don't worry about it. It's not poison at all, very natural, and far better for you than chemicals.

I teach natural dyes at a few local museums and I love this cochineal! It is great quality and one of my favorite things to dye with! You get so much color pay off and I’ve gotten it at least 3 times. I would buy ANY dye stuffs this brand came out with!

Nice bright pink shade.

Grandaughter is gonna love this. Color from bugs!? Doesn’t get any better.

I bought this to dye an art project with, the process is a little difficult but that’s expected with beetles. My only complaint is that the color isn’t super vibrant but I probably just diluted it too much since I was dying a lot of fabric.