Re: Lac and resin
Posted by Catherine Cartwright JOnes on March 20, 2000 at 00:38:27:
In Reply to: Re: Lac and resin posted by Charles on March 19, 2000 at 22:13:17:
Lac, by itself, is just a resin. It is, in it's simplest form ... bug
poop. (From excellent and special bugs.) It's collected from the twigs
where the bugs live. The lac is retrieved from the twigs by careful
heating. It's a very versatile material .... used to make jewelery,
body paint, small precious ornaments. Many pigments can be suspended
in it, so lac paints can have many colors. I suspect that what Jenna
is referring to is a lac paint that has vermillion in it. That's
often used instead of henna .... and vermillion (not actually the lac)
will stain skin. Vermillion releases dye in an alkaline environment.
An excellent source for information on lac is:
Bose, Sankaranarayanan, Gupta, "Chemistry of Lac"
Indian Lac Research Institute, Nankum, Ranchi, Bihar, 1954
That's where I've been getting my info, which seems to differ a bit
from what Jenna said....
