Boysenberry is listed among PRO Chemical & Dye's Procion MX dyes as "PRO MX Boysenberry 802 Violet MX-BR".

The code "Violet MX-BR" appears to be a made-up MX code, possibly from Standard Dyes which makes a habit of using incorrect MX codes (witness Standard's renaming of reactive violet 14 from violet MX-2R, which describes its color nicely, to the totally bogus violet MX-G). ProChem told me, when I asked some time ago, that they did not know what its Colour Index number was, and that they would ask their supplier, but they never got back to me. They said that it is definitely a single-hue unmixed dye, which agrees with my observations.

(Don't confuse MX codes that have different color base names! "MX-BR" is meaningless without its base name of "magenta" or "violet" or "red". For example, red MX-G has nothing in common with turquoise MX-G, except that both are dichlorotriazine (Procion MX type) dyes. See "What do the letters and numbers in the code name for a Procion MX type dye mean? " for more information on how to use these codes.)

Scarlet MX-BRA is a rather uninteresting though undeniably useful manufacturer's mix of two dyes; I believe that it is orange MX-2R combined with red MX-5B, which is a good way to mix a halo-free true red, using Procion MX type dyes. It is completely different from and unrelated to boysenberry. Boysenberry 802 is distinctly bluer than fuchsia (red MX-8B), but much redder (or pinker) than reactive violet 14 (whose proper MX code is violet MX-2R). It is a little difficult to dissolve. Surprisingly, boysenberry mixes with tangerine yellow (yellow MX-GR) to make a very good blood red.

It is my best guess that boysenberry is reactive violet 13 (magenta MX-B), but it might be reactive violet 12 (violet MX-4R) or reactive red 74 (pink MX-B), both of which are on the worldwide market for the textile industry. I don't have any samples of either for testing as a comparison.

Did you know that Aljo Manufacturing is now selling the beautiful blue-violet, blue MX-7RX (reactive blue 161), in the US? It's been unavailable here for many years, except for a brief period when it was imported by Scarlet Zebra.

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