With Perkin's syntheses of Mauve in 1856, the age‐old usage of natural dyes for textiles and foods greatly diminished. However, scientific interest in natural dyes continued. In 1868, the first laboratory synthesis of a natural dye, alizarin, was accomplished, followed by the manufacture of the dye. Later, indigotin was synthesized and ultimately manufactured. The structure of many other natural dyes was determined and verified by synthesis: anthraquinones, naphthoquinones, flavones, anthocyaniddins, and others. In the field of anthraquinones, some remarkable discoveries were reported: laccaic acid was shown to be a mixture of acids, and the wrong structure had been assigned to carminic and kermisic acid. The correct structure of the latter was established using the newly developed regiospecific method of synthesis. The structure of Tyrian Purple was determined and the dye synthesized. Much later, the precursors of the dye were isolated and identified.
Since the early 1970s there has been a renewal of interest in natural dyes for use as food colorants. This was prompted mainly by FDA's deletion of certain synthetic dyes used for coloring foods. Some natural dyes are on FDA's list of approved dyes for coloring foods. However, their range of color is limited, so that other sources of natural dyes have been investigated. Among these was the red beet whose color is due primarily to a red dye and a small amount of a yellow dye. Both were isolated and synthesized and found to have unique chemical structures. By a suitable modification of the chlorophyll molecule, a useful food dye has been obtained.