We see pigments everywhere in products. They make a variety of things we see today. Where does it come from? Do they actually take a red rose pedal, grind the color and designate it as the color red?
Yes, cheaper brands use actual dye. Like, literally dye, as in the stuff you can dye clothing with.
Color is made from a variety of methods.
Pigments come from many sources, and often the name of the color indicates the source. For example, lead white, titanium white and zinc white are lead, titanium and zinc oxides. Cobalt blue is a compound of cobalt. Many pigments are found in nature from minerals, plants and insects. Many more are produced in the laboratory and have chemical names such as the analine dyes.
Pigments selectively reflect and absorb specific wavelengths in the visible region of the electromagnetic spectrum, which is roughly between 400 and 800 nm wavelength. When visible light is incident on a pigment parts of the spectrum are absorbed by certain chemical bonds that are found in conjugated systems or other components of the pigment, known as chromophores or colour centres. Other wavelengths or parts of the spectrum are reflected or scattered. Many pigments are charge-transfer complexes, such as transition metal compounds, but there are others that are organometallic compounds. These have wide light absorption bands that subtract most of the colours of the incident white light. The resulting reflected light spectrum creates the appearance of a colour. The difference between a pigment and a dye is that a pigment is insoluble in the substance that it is used to colour, therfore what you actually end up with is a suspension (e.g. blue pigment in polyethylene), whereas a dye soluble in a carrier so you end up with a solution of the dye, and the solvated dye molecules have an affinity to the surface of the substance that they are being used to colour (fabric dye molecules adsorb to the surfaces of the fibres that make up the fabric).
Basically, it's an aqueous solution with an affinity to a specific substrate. Usually requires a mordant (a binding agent for specific fibers, usually a polyvalent metal ion). Dyes appear to be colored because they absorb some wavelengths of light more than others. In contrast with a dye, a pigment generally is insoluble, and has no affinity for the substrate. Some dyes can be precipitated with an inert salt to produce a lake pigment, and based on the salt used they could be aluminum lake, calcium lake or barium lake pigments. Natural dyes include things like; berries, roots, berries, bark, leaves, and wood, fungi, and lichens. There are also synthetic dyes the most famous (and the first made) being mauveine. Doing a simple Google search would bring up some different synthetic dyes, as well as the different types! (Too many to type here :-)) Hope that helped!
