Forensic analysis of dyed textile fibers

Textile fibers are a key form of trace evidence, and the ability to reliably associate or discriminate them is crucial for forensic scientists worldwide. While microscopic and instrumental analysis can be used to determine the composition of the fiber itself, additional specificity is gained by examining fiber color. This is particularly important when the bulk composition of the fiber is relatively uninformative, as it is with cotton, wool, or other natural fibers. Such analyses pose several problems, including extremely small sample sizes, the desire for nondestructive techniques, and the vast complexity of modern dye compositions. This review will focus on more recent methods for comparing fiber color by using chromatography, spectroscopy, and mass spectrometry. The increasing use of multivariate statistics and other data analysis techniques for the differentiation of spectra from dyed fibers will also be discussed.