M Visalakshi and M Jawaharla
Man has always been interested with colours. The mother earth has rewarded us with natural vibrant hues called natural dyes. Natural dyes has their age old usage in textile industry and due to their non toxic and eco friendly nature find their use in food, drugs and cosmetic industries. Though earth is bestowed with plants containing a wide range of attractive and eco friendly pigments only 0.5 % has been exhaustively used and the remaining is left unexploited. Despite centuries of interest in natural pigments, our knowledge of their sources from plants, distribution, availability and properties is limited. But in recent times the environmental awareness about health hazards cause by synthetic dyes has regained importance of natural dyes. Therefore, novel plant pigments must be searched and proper collection, documentation, assessment and characterization has to be done. In this article we briefly review the availability of natural dyes (reference to India), extraction, its application in various industries, advantages, disadvantages, prospects and future thrust.
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