Ancient men used a variety of colours naturally collected from plants – madder, saffron, indigo, oak apples and myrtle. Wood smouldered to charcoal was used to make deep black colour. Local minerals were another rich source of colour. Indigo is the oldest dye of all. Many minerals exhibit various colours; the varieties are mainly due to impurities, or a slight change in chemical composition.
The oldest dyed fabrics were found in Egypt, dating from 2000 BC. However, the invention of dyeing was probably much older. In 1856, while attempting to produce quinine, William Henry Perkin accidentally synthesized mauve, the earliest synthetic dye. Later, other man-made dyes appeared, but the most significant was a synthetic version of alizarin by Heinrich Caro in 1869.
In the 18th century, England was a hive of paint innovation. Linseed oil and zinc oxide became increasingly available. Mixed together they composed the new paints. A much whiter pigment titanium dioxide came into use after First World War.
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