Indian madder or common madder (Rubia cordifolia) belongs to a species of flowering plant in the coffee family, Rubiaceae. It has been cultivated for a red pigment derived from their roots. Common names of this plant include manjistha in Sanskrit, Marathi, Kannada and Bengali, majith in Hindi and Gujarati, Tamaralli in Telugu, Manditti in Tamil.  Madder is cultivated and grows wild throughout India, south east Asia, Turkey, Europe, south China, parts of Africa, Australia and Japan.

In ancient world, manjistha is reputed as an efficient blood purifier and hence is extensively used against blood, skin and urinary diseases. The root extract has wide range of pharmacological properties thus used against ailments such as arthralgia, arthritis,  cough, diabetes, discolouration of the skin, hemorrhoids, jaundice, slow healing of broken bones, tubercular conditions of the skin and urethrorrhoea etc (Int. J. Pharm. Sci. Rev. Res., 25(1), Mar – Apr 2014; Article No. 27, Pages: 154-164.)

Madder is a complex dyestuff containing over 20 individual chemical substances. Alizarin is the most important of these because it gives the famous warm Turkey red and scarlet colours on textile substrates. Other colouring compounds present in this plant is munjistin, purpurin, and a multitude of yellows and browns, resulting in medium to good fastness properties when combined with different natural mordants.  The invention of a synthesized anthracene compound called alizarin, greatly reduced demand for the natural derivative.                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

                                  We employ genuine Indian madder root powder to produce pink (light to dark shades), brick red orange, red, purple and brown by standardized dyeing process using different combination of natural mordants on fibers, fabric and garments with good performance properties such as wash and light fastness properties.