That’s not dirt under my nails and fingers… that is ALL Blue dye.

A few weeks ago in a store in Perth, someone looked at my hands and asked if I’d been to the doctor to see about my circulation. After a few minutes of panicking and wondering who would sing at my funeral given my untimely blue-handed death I gave them a quick look and almost died seeing how blue my hands were.

Parked outside of the Perth Old Burying Grounds I looked in the car mirror to see if any of the dye was on my face. I shrieked in horror that in exactly 5 minutes I was expected to join the Mahon Family Reunion for the blessing looking like I had died with blue dye around my eyes. Not a good look for a cemetery! With a very used Kleenex I attempted to get the ‘death warmed over’ look off my face.

Mostly cleaned off except small faint marks around my nose.

One of the unknown Mahon’s

Like so many afflictions, ‘dye leak’ doesn’t discriminate by age, location or background and it can strike anyone, at any time. And, while admittedly it was probably the poorly died black lace jacket caught in the rainstorm that caused my stained hands and stained face. Of course I bought it for next to nothing on Wish.com LOL

According to adults I know who actually have their s**t together, the cure for this situation is to wash your garment inside out, three or four times, in cold water. But let’s backtrack for a moment. Three–Or–Four–Times. You have to wash your garment THREE OR FOUR TIMES TO AVOID HAVING BLUE HANDS? HOW IS THAT FAIR?

How did black turn into navy blue? Seems that good-quality black dyes were not known until the middle of the 14th century — nor in 2019 either. The most common early dyes were made from bark, roots or fruits of different trees; usually the walnut, chestnut, or certain oak trees. The blacks produced were often more gray, brown or bluish. The cloth had to be dyed several times to darken the colour. One solution used by dyers was add to the dye some iron filings, rich in iron oxide, which gave a deeper black. Another was to first dye the fabric dark blue, and then to dye it black.

So the last sentence says it all. The Chinese dyed my fabric dark blue and then black. Combined with a rain storm– it ran all over me as they say. Anyway, it’s all fine, no one thought I had climbed out of any plot in that cemetery, and I guess that’s a good thing. Tomorrow is another day, right?