ABSTRACT
As we have seen in Chapter 3, the composition of safflower oil makes for an ideal semidrying oil, and many paint chemists were attracted to it. When safflower oil became available in quantity in the United States during the early 1950s, it had many advantages. Every paint chemist who examined the oil practically salivated, thinking about applications where it might fit because of its light color, very low heat bleach color, and high level of linoleic acid combined with an absence of linolenic acid. This allowed it to dry faster than soybean oil and somewhat slower than linseed oil, but with better color properties than both. In addition, for western paint manufacturers it had the advantage of being nearly as inexpensive as soybean oil, less expensive than linseed oil, and when converted to the conjugated form, less expensive than dehydrated castor oil (DCO). This combination of excellent properties and low prices continued into the 1960s, when excessive demand for safflower oil as an edible product and competition of new, higher yielding wheat varieties began to force prices of safflower oil higher and eventually eliminated most of the industriawl markets for safflower oil during the 1970s and early 1980s (see Table 14.3 for a comparison of safflower and wheat yields and prices, and Table A.15 illustrating safflower and soybean oil prices since 1950).
