Dictionarium polygraphicum. Skins (to colour, to dye).

Dictionarium Polygraphicum:
Or, The Whole Body of Arts Regularly Digested.
Vol II.
London: Printed for C. Hitch and C. Davis in Pater-noster Row, and S. Austen in St. Paul's Church Yard. MDCCXXXV.
1735
To colour skins a light blue or turky colour.
Take smalt four ounces, red wine half a pint, and alum four ounces, vinegar a pint, and white starch an ounce; set them over a gentle fire, but do not suffer them to be over thick; soak the skint in alum water, and hang them up to dry; add to this colouring a pint of gum water, tolerably thick, lay it on when dry, glaze it over, and polish it.

To dye skins a crimson colour, &c.
Take hard soap, scrape three ounces, and dissolve it in fair water, and add to it three ounces of alum; boil them over a gentle fire, 'till the water grow clammy, or a little inclining to thickish; then put in a few grains of cochineal, half an ounce of lake, two ounces of red lead, and a quarter of an ounce of vermilion, and a small piece of indigo; mix them well by stirring them together, and keep them upon a gentle fire, 'till they are about the thickness of the white of an egg; then having first rubb'd the skirt over with alum water, and hung it up to dry, apply this colour, as is directed for others.

Another fair red for skins.
First wet tht skins or pelts in alum water, in which a like quantity of salt, with half as much lime, has been dissolv'd; then stretch them, and dry them, take a quart of the last brewer's drink, and put into it an ounce of Brasl powder or raspings, a quarter of an ounce of vermilion, and an ounce of alum powder 1 thicken them over a gentle fire by continual stirring, and so with a brush or cloth rub over the skins evenly, not laying it thicker in one place than another, and this do three times successively, suffering them only to dry the mean while; and being thus done, they will be according to your expectation.

To colour skins green.
Take the leaves of nightshade, bruise them in a mortar, strain out the juice, and dissolve in each pint two ounces of alum, to which add half an ounce of verdigrease, and heat them gently over the fire; then let it stand for twenty-four hours, and strike over the skins with a brush with it warm; let them dry and go over them again, 'till they have taken a lively colour.

To colour skins a light green.
Take the herb call'd horse-tail, bruise it, and add to the juice a small quantity ot verdigrease, alum, and copperas, make it into a colour over a gentle fire, and it will prove a very pleasant colour.