How to Dissolve Water Soluble Dyes
The best way to use water soluble dyes is to make a solution. Dyes can be messy to handle so our recommended Safety Precaution is to wear safety spectacles, gloves, dust mask, lab coat/apron when handling dyes. Also use an area that can be easily cleaned, if handling could be a concern, the granular dyes are recommended.
To make a solution:
- Weigh out the required quantity of dye
- Make a paste using cold water
- Add hot water to this paste whilst stirring
- Continue to stir until the dye is fully dissolved
- Allow to cool or add cold water
- The dye is now ready to use
- The stability of solutions is good provided they are kept in a cool place and not exposed to direct sunlight.
Some of the dyes have varying solubility - they can be very soluble at high temperatures but on cooling they can come out of solution. Please refer to the table: Water-Soluble & Food Dyes to ensure that you don't try to dissolve too much dye into insufficient water.
Our dyes are extremely powerful and a small variation in weight can lead a big change in colour, especially when using small amounts and when using a mixture of 2 or more dyes.
It is recommended that the accuracy required when weighing (grams) dye is to two decimal points for small volumes and 1 decimal point for large volumes.
If you can only weigh to one decimal point and the volume is small, then it is better to make a concentrate solution.
A good starting point is a 1% solution (i.e. 10g/l), and then add it by volume to your mix, 1ml of this concentrate will contain 0.01g/l, giving the 2 decimal points accuracy.
For blends, you can produce concentrates of each dye and then mix them in your specific ratio to have your own concentrate mixture. This can be added as a single component thus minimising any inaccuracies.