Hematite is a mineral commonly used in iron production, jewelry making, and coloring paint and fabrics. Its chemical composition includes iron and oxygen, and it comes in various colors. When crushed, it can be used to color paint and fabrics.
Hematite, a mineral made up largely of iron oxide, ferric oxide, is commonly used in the production of iron. It is a thick, heavy substance, and the uses of hematite in consumer items are plentiful. When carved, hematite is shiny and comes in many colors, making jewelry design one of the popular uses of hematite. If hematite is crushed, it can be used to color paint. Similar to paint dye, hematite can also be used to color fabrics.
Another name for hematite is iron oxide, because the chemical composition of hematite includes both iron and oxygen. When iron is extracted from hematite for industrial purposes, metallurgists remove oxygen from the hematite until only iron remains. While iron can always be mined on its own, this gives the industrial worker more overall iron to work with and prevents the miners from having to mine excessive amounts of cleaner iron. Most iron is also combined with another substance, such as in hematite, so this is very natural and expected by metallurgists.
While hematite isn’t one of the more expensive substances, another one of hematite’s uses is in jewelry. These pieces aren’t usually made to be expensive, but are designed more for aesthetics. Hematite tends to have a wide range of colors, including black, red, and brown, allowing jewelry crafters to make many pieces with many different looks from hematite. Its iron portions also make hematite very shiny, it tends to have a desirable sheen that many people like.
Paint needs dyes to take on certain colors, and while chemicals are often used to create dyes for modern paints, some paint colors use natural substances like hematite. While hematite comes in many different colors, it usually turns paint colors light red when crushed. After the hematite has been crushed, it is added to oil, acrylic or other common paint substances to complete the process.
Along with one of hematite’s uses for giving color to paint, it can also be used with fabrics to dye shirts, pants, and other items of clothing. Just like paint, the color is normally red, but this can be changed if other substances are added to the dye bath. While the fabric is dyed with hematite, very little of the hematite itself sticks to the material, making this dye relatively safe.
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