Are Procion MX dyes vegan?

Procion MX dyes are made from chemicals that have been synthesized from petroleum, natural gas, or coal, plus some chemicals that have been produced by mining.

You can't really say that "no animals have been harmed" in the manufacture of the dye, because animals are inevitably killed by the destruction of habitat in the clearing of land for factories, petroleum distilleries, and mines. On the other hand, the exact same thing is true of farmland, and of the factories used to produce the food additives used in manufacturing otherwise vegan foods.

Here's a recipe for C.I. reactive red 2, also known as Procion Red MX-5B....

Cyanuric chloride (20.3 g, 0.11 gmol) is dissolved by stirring in acetone (100 ml) and reprecipitated by pouring rapidly into ice (300 g) and water (300 g). Concentrated hydrochloric acid (0.5 ml) is added and at 0-5°C an alkaline (pH 8.5) solution of H-acid disodium salt (equaivalent to 36.6 g at 100% pure) in water (160 ml) is added slowly over 60 min. The reaction mixture is stirred 30 min at 0-5°C to complete the reaction. Simultaneously, aniline (9.3 g) is dissolved in water (100 ml) and 10M hydrochloric acid (25 ml) and cooled to 0-5°C. Diazotization is effected by dropwise addition of a solution of sodium nitrite (7.2 g) in water (25 ml) maintaining a slight excess of nitrous acid as shown by a positive starch-iodide reaction. The excess is removed by addition of a little sulfamic acid. The benzenediazonium hydrochloride solution is then added rapidly at 0-5°C to the coupler solution and sodium acetate (50 g) is added. The reaction mixture is then stirred 20 h at 0-5°C and sodium carbonate is added to raise the pH to 8.5. Sodium chloride equivalent to producing a 20% solution is added and the precipitated dye is filtered after 30 min. The dye cake is mixed intimately with sodium dihydrogen phosphate (2 g) and disodium hydrogen phosphate (2g) and is dried in vacuum at 30°C. (From page 90 of The Chemistry and Application of Dyes, edited by David R. Waring and Geoffrey Hallas.)

Cyanuric chloride is made from hydrogen cyanide, which is made from methane and ammonia. Methane and ammonia are both made from natural gas. Acetone is produced from propene (aka propylene), which can be produced from petroleum, natural gas, or coal. H-acid is 8-amino-1-naphthol-3,6-disulfonic acid; I haven't determined what it's synthesized from, but most likely its feedstocks originally come from from petroleum, natural gas, or coal. Aniline is produced from benzene; most benzene comes from the petrochemical industry, though some comes from coal. Sodium carbonate is obtained from trona, which is mined in Wyoming. Sodium phosphates ultimately come from phosphate-containing minerals, which are mined.

Be aware that fabric softeners, including the ones in dryer sheets, are in most cases made from animal fats. Although almost any product you can buy has at some point resulted in the deaths of animals in one way or another, fabric softeners are the only textile chemicals I can think of that are actually made from dead animals. With care, you can find plant-derived fabric softeners.

-Paula