Abstract

 The purpose of this study was to identify and use the extraction of dyes from natural plants. Many Nigerian indigenous plants are potential sources of dyes and some of these plants are processed on a small scale using local technology to produce dyes for the textile industry. Three hypothesis were used and a sensory evaluation experiment on Completely Randomized Design (CRD) with 24 treatments and 10 replications was conducted in the Clothing Laboratory of the Home Economics Department of Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike to access the beauty, sharpness and colour-fastness of dyes. This study examined dye production from Zoborodo flowers (Hibiscus specie), ginger rhizome (Zingiber officinale), kolanut seeds (Cola nitida), camwood leaves (Pterocarpus mildraedii), indigo leaves (Indigofera tinctoria), bougainvillea leaves (Xbuttiana alexandra) for dyeing cotton fabrics. In the extraction of these dyes a weighed quantity of each ground plants was used. The extraction was done using two different methods namely — Aqueous Extraction (water) and Organic Extraction (alcohol). The dyes were kept for six weeks to determine the shelflife using water. Results showed that Zoborodo (Hibiscus specie) produced the best dyes in terms of beauty and sharpness but they were not satisfactory in terms of colour fastness. Indigo produced colour — fast, that were encouraging and however rated low in beauty and sharpness.