Cochineal part#2

I am having a love-hate relationship with cochineal. Love because it's so freaking cool. Hate because it's the only dye I've ever come across that the recipes staunchly adhere to the idea that alum is not the primary mordant. I've never had alot of luck with yarns that are solely mordanted with Iron or Copper. The colors aren't as satisfying, so I almost exclusively use them as after mordants. Well, cochineal feels like being different and I went ahead and alum mordanted all my wool skeins (assuming it was like the rest... because I was simultaneously trying to synthesize a handful of cochineal recipes and a handful of madder recipes, and the safflower dye). Well, now that I'm reading in depth, I was first disbelieving, then furious with myself, then frustrated, then accepting..... of the fact that I fucked it up royally by using alum on everything. I'm really lucky I have enough materials to swatch it correctly, but I was really hoping for skeins of all the different colors, and I'm currently uncertain if the Tin, Iron, and Copper mordants are strong enough to override the alum. Ugh.... And of course those three are the ones that require my respirator (which makes everything that much more joyful).

So for all the world-- DON'T PRE-MORDANT YOUR COCHINEAL OR ELSE!!! Or else you'll be grouchy like me.

I have the tin+cream of tarter+turmeric "Fire Scarlet" on cooking at the moment. A little bit of each added to a small bath and cooked for an hour. I tossed in unmordanted swatches to get a truer coloring. I've got my fingers crossed for the rest of it...