With increasing awareness about synthetic colors, companies are searching for natural alternatives. While transitioning may seem daunting, experts such as Oterra have created methods to produce more stable pigments in various shades and create wider range of shades.
Natural colors offer an eco-friendly solution, helping promote sustainable practices while providing many healthful advantages such as reduced chemical dependence and timeless appeal.
Eco-friendly
Natural colors offer an eco-friendly alternative to synthetic dyes. Sourced from plants, animals, or minerals and using renewable ingredients as colorants, their use has grown steadily as consumers become more concerned with health impacts and environmental consequences of synthetic dyes [105].
Eucalyptus leaves can produce deep red tones while hibiscus flowers produce magenta hues. Turmeric, an organic dye with one of the brightest organic hues available today, can also be extracted through simmering its root or powder; other plant-based options such as red cabbage, annatto seeds and yellow onion skins also exist as potential dye sources.
Novel extraction techniques offer scientists new opportunities for creating safe and effective natural food dyes from waste materials like fruit peels, vegetables and meat scraps. This provides safe and eco-friendly dye solutions.
Sustainable
Synthetic dye pigments often contain toxic chemicals, while natural colors come from renewable and biodegradable resources. Natural colors also produce less environmental impacts than their synthetic counterparts due to reducing water pollution and soil degradation.
Scientists are exploring food industry wastes as potential sources for natural dyes. Beta-carotene and lycopene have been extracted from tomato and papaya waste to produce natural coloring agents, such as beta-carotene.
Participants noted the difficulty of finding affordable naturally dyed clothing options is still an issue, while others observed how natural dyes could bleed during laundering – both issues can impede consumers from purchasing sustainable alternatives. Therefore, more information regarding product labeling and colorfastness must be shared to strengthen consumer perceptions so more people opt for sustainable options.
Natural Harmony
Natural colors create harmony by coming together in harmony, similar to how musical notes combine into chords.
Color can also create an emotional response – either warmth or coolness. Warm hues like yellow and orange stimulate and energise people, while cooler blues and greens tend to calm and relax people.
Natural colors are straightforward to work with if you understand color harmony. You can achieve harmony by employing shades, tints and tones of a single hue or by employing complementary schemes; this technique works particularly well when creating bold designs, as it creates high contrast without being visually disturbing; furthermore it lends itself to various styles ranging from classical sophistication to contemporary flair.
Flavor-Neutral
Natural colors offer a delicious and healthy alternative to synthetic dyes that come from non-edible sources and alter flavor, like synthetic dyes. Instead, natural colors come from edible fruits, vegetables, seeds, plants and minerals and are more eco-friendly and promote sustainable farming practices.
Consumers tend to perceive products with natural hues as having more of a natural taste; participants from the US, UK and Australia all rated products that use both natural colors and flavors with higher naturalness scores than ones containing only artificial ones.
While natural colors may introduce off-notes or reduce stability issues or necessitate higher usage rates of flavors, strategic formulation adjustments and targeted flavor solutions can turn these challenges into advantages – making the move to natural hues an opportunity rather than a sacrifice.
Timeless
Natural color palettes stand the test of time and maintain an enduring aesthetic, supporting more environmentally sustainable production practices and less frequent product refreshes, thus decreasing waste created by these products.
Consider, for instance, the blues and greens found in nature: trees, grass, plants and oceans all naturally display hues of this sort. Additionally, animal coats, feathers and scales all exhibit beautiful designs to camouflage or attract animals in different ways.
Academic research situates natural colors within a wider cultural and historical narrative. This includes an examination of traditional knowledge systems related to plant dyes, socio-economic aspects of natural pigment industries and psychophysiological resonance research utilizing techniques such as fMRI or EEG studies.
