A tiny amount of gentian violet goes a long way.  I discovered after the first time I opened a bottle of it that nearly invisible specks of the tincture had gotten on my hands and everything I touched for half an hour got a purple spot on it.  Sort of like the kind of Easter egg dye we had when I was a kid, if a minuscule particle of it landed on the table and water was later spilled on it, zowie!  Impressive messes.  Is it possible that the mother or the child gets some on her hands and when in contact with a slightly moist baby's head, the pigment spreads out so it becomes visible?  It is well nigh impossible to avoid contact with it if you are uncapping a bottle and putting a cotton applicator into it, and it seems you only need about one molecule of the stuff to make a bang-up stain.

I would think that if it were being systemically absorbed (and I have never heard of that happening), the spots would be all over the baby, not just on the part of its anatomy most likely to be caressed by the mother during feeds.

Rachel Myr
Kristiansand, Norway
who doesn't know whether Easter egg dye is the same nowadays, because we don't color eggs here :-)

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