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A Perfect Red

Empire, Espionage, and the Quest for the Color of Desire
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Oct 17, 2016Novel_Librarian rated this title 3.5 out of 5 stars
I picked up this book while in a small mountain town in Bolivia, volunteering and learning to do some simple weaving. Weavers in the area are working to reclaim some of the traditional knowledge they've lost, including dying from natural dyes. For their reds, pinks, and lavenders they use cochineal, so the woman I was staying with gave me this to read. It's a very informative, narrative account of just how we get reds, and the extraordinary lengths people have traditionally gone to to get it. It's of particular interest again now, as cosmetic companies have discovered that by using cochineal they can label their products "organic." All well and good, except that now it's leading to an international shortage of cochineal (echoes of the 16th century here), and so traditional weavers in Bolivia and Peru and elsewhere will begin to have difficulty purchasing it. All of which is to say - the history of a color that continues to be written and impact diverse societies! My only caveat is that you can tell that it was written by an academic, in that it can occasionally be a bit dry in places.