Let’s say you’re looking for a specific flower hue but only the white one is available. Can its color be altered? Definitely! Here are your options when modifying the color of a fresh white flower.
How to Custom Color White Flowers
Floral Spray
A floral spray can instantly turn a white flower into any color you want in just seconds. Simply spray on the petals at a safe spraying distance of at least 18 inches and allow it to dry for about 5-10 minutes. It’s as quick as that.
A 12 OZ floral spray covers a medium to large bouquet arrangement — depending on your desired opacity. It usually costs around $10 a can and has a wide variety of colors to choose from.
Floral Dip-Dyeing
The common ingredient used for dip-dyeing flowers is fabric dye. It could be in powder form that needs to be diluted first in hot water or an instant liquid form in which you can use the full strength of the dye. Liquid food coloring mixed with water can also be used for dip-dyeing flowers. The color potency depends on the water and color dye ratio.
Once you have your mix ready in a bowl, simply dip the flower petals into the liquid solution, let it drip, and set it aside for drying.
Floral Dyeing Through Stem Absorption
This popular method involves a phenomenon called Capillary Action, where liquid moves through or along the surface of another material. In a simple flower sense, the colored liquid will flow through the stems and into the petals.
We’ve seen this experiment everywhere —commonly in kids’ science projects— all of which use the good old artificial food coloring. The stems can be even cut in half to achieve dual colors or multiple cuts for a rainbow-like finish. Will it be the same if we use artificial food coloring?
Flower Dyeing Timelapse: Natural vs Artificial Food Color
In this experiment, I tried to modify the flower’s petal colors using natural food coloring derived from fruit and some veggies instead of the usual artificial food coloring.
Main Materials:
- Test Tubes (12ml)
- White Rose
- White Chrysanthemum
- Red Cabbage
- Ripe Mango
- Spinach
- Purple Food Color
- Green Food Color
- Yellow Food Color
All flowers were cut to about 7 inches in length (from the top of the bud to the tip of the stem). The test tubes were filled with about 80-85 percent of the coloring to have some room for the weight of the flower.
Extracting the Natural Food Color of a Red Cabbage
Even though it’s called red cabbage, this tasty salad ingredient gave us a nice purple color after extraction.
The cabbage was cut into strips, placed in a medium heat pan, and then slightly covered with water. After about 10 minutes of boiling, I ended up with a nice and thin purple liquid. A half teaspoon of baking soda can be added to change the color to blue. This extract will go against the full strength of the purple artificial food color.
Extracting the Natural Food Color of a Spinach
I used a food processor with about 15 ml of water to finely chop the Spinach. Then it’s a test of grip strength to squeeze the green extract out of the leaves. It has the same consistency as the purple liquid, only it has small bits of leaves. This extract will go against the full strength of the green artificial food color.
Extracting the Natural Food Color of a Mango
As much as I wanted to eat it, for the sake of feeding my curiosity, I had to mash and squeeze these mango chunks until I get a decent amount of liquid. The consistency is thick. This extract will go against the full strength of the yellow artificial food color.
Floral Dyeing Timelapse
The purple test lasted for about 10 hours, while the green and yellow tests lasted for 12 hours. I felt I needed to add more hours so the flowers could have more time to absorb the fluids.
If you’re a good observant, you’ll notice that both the natural and artificial colors were being absorbed as the fluid levels go down. But did they have the same effect?
Check the video below and I’ll let you be the judge.
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