Hellfire
Inferno (Latin)
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Favorable sindura of red-orange color or kumkuma/Shutterstock
In Europe, red dyes were very expensive and rare until the mass cultivation of madder, a plant whose roots yield red dye, became possible. And when the Spaniards learned how to extract carmine, a red dye obtained from the cochineal insect that lives on cacti, from indigenous people in America, textile manufacturers started experimenting with new shades of red. In the late eighteenth century, a particularly popular color was the purplish-red hue that earned the vivid name ‘the color of hellfire’. It’s a bold, daring color that was, for the longest time, considered completely unsuitable for young and modest ladies.
Today, in the hexadecimal code used by designers, it is denoted by the value #CD212A.