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The Deadly History of the Victorian Green Dye
The Scheele Green Dye being used in wallpapers, clothing, and ornaments was a beautiful, silent, and deadly killer for many.
19th century Britain had its fair share of mysteries, but none as deathly and conspicuous as the one behind the arsenic-laden green dye. Many families grieved the untimely loss of their children, but little did they know that the one responsible for that death is that emerald green wallpaper in their house. What follows below is the story of how everyone learned, the hard way around, to avoid the in-vogue green dye.
The Discovery of Scheele Green
Are you still wrapping your head around how a color laced with arsenic poison became so popular and why customers continued to use it despite its side effects? For that, we will have to dig a little into Victorian history.
Even though every imaginable dye is readily available nowadays, that wasn’t true for the Victorian era. Many complained about the shades washing out and of the pigments’ poor mimicry of the real-life colors. Being unable to replicate the fresh, bright green of plants was a sore spot.
However, Carl Wilhelm Sheele, a Swedish pharmaceutical chemist, discovered a fix to this problem. He created a dye in 1775, a fully saturated bright hue of green out of copper arsenic. This color became a favorite and soon could be seen in about every household. Little did everyone know the cost of this color. Alison Matthews David, in her book Fashion Victims, writes:
“This chemical green’s brilliance, cheapness, and relative ease of use made it an ideal, reliable fashion color until the public rejected it as poisonous more than eighty years after its invention.”
Most people would develop a rash after wearing what commonly came to be known as Scheele’s Green. It was readily used for wallpapers, hair ornaments, the green ink on stickable stamps, and clothing.
Arsenic was generally also used in beauty products for candy coating and food…
