Contact allergy to reactive dyes in footwear

Reactive dyes have been used in the textile industry for the past 60 years; they colour fibres brightly and are highly wetfast. They consist of a direct colourant (an azo, anthraquinone or phthalocyanin derivative group) connected to a reactive group, which is capable of linking through covalent bonds to the amine or sulfhydryl groups of proteins (1). We report a case of a delayed contact hypersensitivity reaction to reactive dyes.