Indigo is a blue color, in one of the darkest and deepest shades between blue and violet, that makes up the rainbow, found by Isaac Newton. It was one of the most used colors in the textile and graphic industries of antiquity and is widely applied today in clothes made of jeans. Learn more about this color and what it represents!

The color indigo blue had its use recorded in Egypt, Greece, Rome, Peru, and Iran, but the starting point for spreading its use was India, where the first works employing its dyeing were made.

Etymology

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The name indigo was known in ancient times as indigo and glasto, depending on how the dyes were extracted or on the plants from which they were extracted. Indigo could be obtained from Indigofera tinctoria, Indigofera suffruticosa, while glasto was obtained from Isatis tinctoria. Although the way to obtain glasto and indigo are different, because for each one there is a plantSpecifically, they are considered synonymous.

The term indicus, which means "from India" in Latin, refers to the name of the dye imported from that country. In 1955, the term was incorporated into our language.

History

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One of the earliest known uses of this color occurred in the Peruvian Andes, 1500 years before the Egyptians, contrary to the belief that the first uses were in ancient Egypt for dyeing mummies' bandages, in about 1580 B.C.

The pharaoh, in ancient Egypt, was the only one who used the color, due to the fact that the process of extracting the pigment was costly, which ended up conferring the hierarchical social and political importance that he occupied.

Records of Marco Polo's travels include India as the world's oldest indigo dye center and the first supplier of the color to Europe, Rome, and Greece.

A type of dye with the same tone characteristics was discovered by the Mayans in pre-Columbian times, later called Mayan blue.

Indigo remained an important color during the Middle Ages and was even obtained in a close shade by extracting the substance from another plant.

The main suppliers of the raw material for indigo were Venezuela, Jamaica, and South Carolina, as soon as the Americas were conquered.

It was in the 19th century that it became possible to obtain color through a synthetic chemical procedure, and no longer through plants.

Indigo Color Chromotherapy

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The color indigo is used in chromotherapy to treat people who need to overcome fear or have mental illnesses.

In the Hindu religion, it corresponds to the third eye chakra, known as Ajna, the sixth chakra, and is located at a point between the eyebrows. It is connected to intuitive abilities and subtle perception.

The pineal gland, located in the center of the brain and in the middle of the forehead, in turn, is related to intuitive abilities and subtle perception, and has similarities with the eyeball, hence, third eye.

The color assists in developing a better awareness of self, understanding life situations, and the fullness of existence. It promotes serenity and self-knowledge. It is applied to purify, cleanse, clear, relax, and free the mind and physical body of fears, destructive thoughts, feelings of inferiority, and phobias.

It is also used in healing treatments for vision, hearing, sleep disorders, nightmares, headaches, depression, and anything involving the destabilization of the frontal chakra.

Meaning

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Since its origin, the color indigo has been related to royalty, luxury, and wealth. It was used on coats of arms to portray family nobility.

It is also attributed a meaning of spirituality, knowledge, creativity, intuition, and heightened perception.

People who have it in their aura are humble, affectionate, and oriented toward intellectuality and spirituality.

Other meanings associated with the color are authenticity, trust, friendship, reason, logic, and self-knowledge.

Indigo is a cultural symbol of the Tuareg, a nomadic people in the Sahara desert, whose men cover their heads with "tagel musts" dyed in this color and for whom both the fabric and the shade represent greater or lesser social importance.

The 501 model of jeans, patented in 1873 by Levi Strauss, was initially produced in a color other than indigo. Beginning in the last decade of the 19th century, it began to be dyed blue, but with anilines. In the 1960s and 1970s, the pants were popularized in Europe and the United States and became a symbol of breaking with the system, an icon of freedom and emancipation,giving indigo the idea of transformation.

How to obtain the color indigo?

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Indigo color can be obtained through two processes: one natural and the other artificial.

In the natural process, the leaves of the Indigofera tinctoria and Indigofera suffruticosa plants are macerated and, as soon as oxidation occurs, a specific shade between dark blue and violet emerges. Then a paste is made, from which any material can be dyed.

It is also possible to obtain the color using lapis lazuli and the paste obtained from the Indigofera arrecta plant as a source.

The artificial process was developed in the late 19th and early 20th century by the German chemist Adolf von Baeyer, without industrial results, because it did not prove to be financially viable and economical.

It was the Swiss Karl Heumann who, in a laboratory, arrived at the ideal synthesis of the color indigo and expanded it to other laboratories and industries that began to produce the pigment called Prussian blue.

When to use the color indigo?

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The color indigo can be used when there are vision and hearing disorders, inflammatory processes, for labyrinthitis, to restore balance and inner peace, to influence positivity and concentration, and to eliminate headaches.

If used in tension-laden environments, the color will provide release, and in cases of illness, direct light on the affected region helps the inflammatory processes and acts as an anesthetic, anti-hemorrhagic, and healing.

How to wear the color indigo

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The color indigo can be used in the lighting of the home or work environment (if there is such freedom), in decorative objects, in the colors of clothes and accessories, in food, or by mentalizing a beam of indigo light over an area in need.

Applications of color in everyday life

The most common use of indigo blue is in cotton clothing and jeans, but it is also employed to give a deep tone to wool, as a food coloring, and in the detection of kidney abnormalities.

Excessive indigo color

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Anything that is out of balance can cause harm. So too is the overuse of the color indigo, as it can trigger distorted feelings of superiority, self-centeredness, and megalomania.

As you can notice, indigo blue is an old, mental and deep color. Very common in jeans, people are used to it and a large part of the world population has it as their favorite color.

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In some companies and television stations, there is an incentive to use the color indigo blue in clothing, because they attribute to it a characteristic of respect and seriousness. Reflect on the subject and evaluate the degree of importance that this color has for you. Also, get to know chromotherapy!