Red Spinach Leaves

Natural dyes come from several sources and one of the more popular options is from plants. Plants have become the most used source because the material is easier to find and cheaper as compared to other sources like animals and minerals. Dyestuff from plant may reside in roots, berries, barks, leaves, wood, and flowers of it or lichen and moss on it. They provide colour and may produce colour that is not expected like a red flower that usually yields a yellow shade (Dagmar, 2012). However, certain material still yield the colour that is expected like red onion produces reds shade, blueberries produce blue to purple shades and walnut that yield brown shade.

Dyestuff can be obtained by extracting the natural resource and there is certain method

al., 2011). In this study, Red spinach leaves are selected as the material for the natural dye. Its leave is round, thick, and rich green in colour like normal spinach but has a bright red colour on centre of leave and stem. Red spinach itself has many benefits to body and skin health because it contains essential amino acid, iron, magnesium, phosphorus, Vitamin E, potassium and Vitamin C. A reddish purple shade is the desired colour outcome of this study which contains anthocynanins (ACNs) which are water-soluble plants pigments responsible for the blue, purple, and red colour of many plant tissues (Beecher et. al.,

The testing involved are colour fastness test which includes washfastness, light fastness, and rubbing or crocking test, together with colour reflectance test. These three colour fastness testing is to study the colouring properties of dye on fabric and how mordant works to fix the red spinach dye on fabric. Washfastness test aims to evaluate the change of colour or staining from the fabric after washing it for certain time. Lightfastness is to assess the colour fading on the fabric after being exposed to light within a certain period. Rubbing is to evaluate the colour transfer to other fabric if frictions are applied to the fabric. The other testing is colour reflectance test and according to ASTM E1331-09 Standard Test Method for Reflectance Factor and Color it is to obtain the colour coordinates of dyed fabric by using spectrophotometers or colorimeters with either hemispherical or bidirectional