A brief review on natural dyes, pigments: Recent advances and future perspectives

Dyes and pigments can make the world beautiful. They are being used since long time and find vide applications in various fields such as food, textile, artifacts and paper industries. This has resulted in an extensive research on development of natural colorants from natural sources The advantages of using natural colorants are manifolds as they are eco-friendly, safe, easily obtained from renewable sources soft, lustrous and soothing to the human eye. They do not cause health hazards, offers/ offer no disposal problems. India is rich source of colorants. It is estimated that, in India there are some 500 varieties of colorant producing plants from which colorants can be easily extracted. The present mini review describes some fundamental aspects of colorants their classification, chemical constituents responsible for producing various colors, newer methods of production extraction and mechanism of dyeing and future prospects.