Indigo can do more than dye clothes blue!

Who knew plant dyes could do so much more than change the colours of our clothes? Plants are so cool. 🌿

References:

[adbei]

You know what heals wounds? How softly you speak. Emotional wounds, that is. Mine, specifically. Ba-dum-tsss.

[Ariadne]

Awesome information - thank you for sharing it! 💙💙

[projectpenwing]

I wish we learned stuff like this in school too!

[lizhyink]

Ok, so it's an antimicrobial?...That's really interesting history, and I'm also now curious about areas where indigo dye might've hit the water systems. Antibiotic/ antimicrobial resistance is possible by exposure and mutation over time, and yet bacteriophages exist, as well. Just wondering about ratios and influences in the environment surrounding heavy use of indigo dye. The key of effectiveness of bacteriophages is matching the viral "bacteria-eater" in nature with its preferred bacteria food. They aren't an absolute safety net, and more a matter of luck in the past. ( Today, technology can help pair those accurately). Even so, regarding the separate and different infection healing tool, natural antimicrobial/ antiseptic: With early trade routes sending indigo cloth far and wide, maybe like many antibiotics, they were more effective at first, but over time, the local bacteria built up resistance.