Colours made from water
4 colours that our sources say are made from water.
Purple and violet
Mauveine
A purple dye first made by accident in 1856, launching the synthetic dye industryDye
Brown
Ferrihydrite
A dark brown to yellow-brown iron mineral found in soils and water depositsColour named from nature · 🇩🇪 Germany
White
Venetian ceruse
A white lead-based cosmetic once prized for skin whitening in Renaissance EuropePigment · 🇮🇹 Italy +2
Blue
Bluing
A blue dye added to laundry to make white fabrics look brighterTraditional colour · 🇬🇧 United Kingdom +5
Photo credits on this page
The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.
- Venetian ceruse: George Vertue, Public domain, source
- Ferrihydrite: Henk Smeets – tomeikminerals.com, CC BY 4.0, source
- Bluing: Raimond Spekking, CC BY-SA 4.0, source