Although hematoxylin is considered to be the standard for histology and cytology staining, it has certain drawbacks that eriochrome lacks. For instance, hematoxylin is not resistant to acidic solutions and it is a natural raw material; bearing in mind the environmental concerns, that make it harder to obtain.

Eriochrome is a synthetic raw material, easily obtainable and most importantly, it is very comparable to hematoxylin (by the way of the staining process), and it is also resistant to acidic solutions (which is a big advantage when using trichrome special staining methods). In other words, eriochrome had an environmental and practical advantages compared to hematoxylin with the same (if not better) staining results.