The Turkey red process

Turkey red dyeing was a long and complex process which depended on specialised knowledge and skill.

Mordanting
Treat the cloth with sour olive oil, pearl ash, sheep’s dung and water. Dry in warm air. Repeat seven or eight times.

Tanning
Treat in a decoration of nut-galls. Dry. Treat with neutralised alum. Age for three four days. Treat with warm water containing ground chalk.

The process involved thoroughly cleansing the yarn or cloth by boiling with alkali; steeping in rancid olive or castor oil, soda and cow or sheep dung, mordanting with alum and sumac; dyeing in a batch of madder, ox blood and chalk; finally, washing to brighten the colour. In the early nineteenth century the process could take three weeks or more. It has often been cited as the most complicated dyeing process ever invented by man. All this was done in the constant stench of the process:

Dyeing
Treat with extract of madder root.

Cleaning
Treat two or three times with salt solution.