Natural colors

This rebozo shows the three natural dyes used in Oaxaca. All other colors come from these three.

The rosy red color is from grano cochinillo, a scale insect that lives on the nopal cactus. The dark indigo color is from the añil plant. The third color, that appears lilac in the photo but can also look like faded denim, is from caracol, a mollusk that lives in the ocean. To get this dye, men go onto the rocks on the beaches of Oaxaca, pick up the mollusks and squeeze them, collecting the secretions onto white threads. Then the snails are put back in the ocean. The secretions oxidize to blue and dry as lilac. So the dye from caracol is the only one of the three that comes from a living creature.