Papanicolaou’s stain is a multichromatic (multicolored) cytological staining technique.The Papanicolaou stain is one of the most widely used stains in cytology, where it is used to aid pathologists in making a diagnosis.

HiMedia is delivering a range of chemicals and reagents for use in the development of diagnostic lateral flow immunoassays. These chemicals and reagents have been tested for their physical, chemical and functional characteristics to improve the reliability of results.

Haematoxylin (Harris) is used for general purpose nuclear stain and for histological studies. Haematoxylin and eosin are the principle stains used for the demonstration of nucleus and the cytoplasmic inclusions. Alum acts as a mordant and haematoxylin containing alum stains nucleus light blue which turns red in the presence of acid. The cell differentiation is achieved by treating the tissue with acid solution.

Eosin is tetra bromofluorescein (a substituted xanthene), a red acidic dye and fluorochrome. The dye is very soluble in ethyl alcohol. Eosin, 2% w/v is the most commonly used as counterstain for hematoxylin and it is also used for monochrome staining of bacteria.

May Grunwald's Blood Stains are basic and acidic dyes which induce multiple colours when applied to cells. The basic component of white cells (i.e cytoplasm) is stained by the acidic dye and they are described as eosinophilic or acidophilic. The acidic components (e.g. nucleus with nucleic acid) take blue to purple, shades of the basic dyes and they are called basophilic. The neutral components of the cell are stained by both the dyes.

Decolourizer is one reagent used in this process to provide the color differentiation. A decolourizing solution is used to remove the Primary Stain from cells which bind it weakly and then the counterstain (like safranin) is used to provide a colour contrast in those cells that are decolourized.

Lugol's iodine is used as staining solution to detect intestinal protozoa and helminth ova or larvae. It is rapid contrast dye that is added to direct wet mounts of fecal material to aid in differentiating parasitic cysts from host white blood cells. Lugol's iodine stain the protozoan nuclei and intracytoplasmic organelles brown making them easier to identify.

Gram’s iodine is used in Gram staining procedure to differentiate gram positive and gram negative organisms. Gram’s iodine acts as a mordant that causes the crystal violet to penetrate and adhere to the gram positive organisms. It is also used in Neisser’s Metachromatic Staining.

Gram's Crystal Violet is used for Gram's staining. In practice, a smear of bacterial cells is stained with crystal violet, then treated with an iodine containing mordant to increase the binding of primary stain. A decolourizing solution is used to remove the crystal violet from cells which bind it weakly and then the counterstain with safranin.

Negative staining method permits visualization of the usually transparent and unstainable capsule of many organisms, most importantly Cryptococcus neoformans. Nigrosin consists of a suspension of fine particles of carbon. These form a dark background.

Fixative is recommended to fix cytological and histological samples specially vaginal smear (for PAP staining). It preserve cellular morphology of specimen sample