The Benibana Museum (The Safflower Museum)
8. Its Use and Effect (用途と効用)
- Flower
- a natural flower, a dried flower (for appreciation)
- a dried benibana (for medicine, cosmetics, tea, sake)
- a red pigment (for color agent, dyeing, cosmetics, medicine, art agent)
- a yellow pigment (for color agent, dyeing, art agent)
- Seed
- a benibana oil (for cooking, medicine, painting, benibana ink)
- a stained lees (for fertilizer, fodder)
- Leaves
- (for cooking, tea)
- Stem
- (for tea, fodder)
The color pigments contained in the petal of benibana are divided into two: one is called safrole-yellow, which is melted into water, the other is called carthamin and it is not melted in water, and both are used for dyeing.
If the high purity of carthamin is used for lipsticks, it prevents the roughness of lips and it promotes the circulation of blood. As the cloth dyed in a red color is worn on the body, it promotes to keep the body's temperature, so it was used for a health band, socks, a loincloth and a stomach band. It was also used for ascetic devotees to wear and was very effective to women whose health is adversely affected by the cold.
The seeds of benibana have an effect to get rid of cholesterol of blood vessel and the quality of safflower oil is good for prevention of high blood pressure. They are used for salad oil, fried oil (天ぷら油) and margarine oil. Also the oil produced from the seed is used for kerosene and its soot can be made into a high quality of sumi (墨).
Young stem of the flowers are good for cooking and the flowers is used for a flower arrangement or dried flowers.