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Liquid Dye or Dye Chips? What's Your Poison?


Dye - Liquid or Chips?  

43 members have voted

  1. 1. Dye - Liquid or Chips?

    • Always Liquid
      20
    • Always Chips/Blocks
      5
    • I Like Both
      18


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My thought is this is asked so frequently that I don't think my opinion ever changes ... both suit my needs, but then you left out color blocks, which also suits my needs. And then there's the flakes ... but haven't had a desire to try them.

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Flakes over Blocks?

My last pour, I had lil tiny pieces of dye block.... and had to scoop them out, manually mix them with my fingers (no comment), and before anyone says anything, my temp was correct. HEHE

I'm guessing that the flakes are smaller and thus easier to melt and mix in?

I use both liquid and some dye flakes as well that I get locally. So far, both seem to be very easy to work with for me, in C-3. :)
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First we tried dye chips and hated them. Then we used liquid (ECO from JBN) and mostly still do. BUT we couldn't get a good black in liquid (except for the el stinko liquid), so we tried another brand of dye chips (Reddig-Glo Dye Chips) and that works great. We were so pleased with it that we are slowly trying the other available colors. So far, so good.

Pros of Liquid - mixes easily usually; easy to blend colors on the fly; easy to use for small batches

Cons of Liquid - several colors seem to promote frosting in soy-based waxes; bits of pigment sometimes do not dissolve despite heated stirring.

Pros of chips - mix easily in hot wax; premeasured; uniform color

Cons of chips - difficult to blend colors on the fly; harder to get uniform colors with small batches.

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Thanks for the Pros & Cons

A thought... with black... as with painting and other craft applications, using multiple colors with a similar hue along with black deepens the color.

First we tried dye chips and hated them. Then we used liquid (ECO from JBN) and mostly still do. BUT we couldn't get a good black in liquid (except for the el stinko liquid), so we tried another brand of dye chips (Reddig-Glo Dye Chips) and that works great. We were so pleased with it that we are slowly trying the other available colors. So far, so good.

Pros of Liquid - mixes easily usually; easy to blend colors on the fly; easy to use for small batches

Cons of Liquid - several colors seem to promote frosting in soy-based waxes; bits of pigment sometimes do not dissolve despite heated stirring.

Pros of chips - mix easily in hot wax; premeasured; uniform color

Cons of chips - difficult to blend colors on the fly; harder to get uniform colors with small batches.

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Flakes over Blocks?

My last pour, I had lil tiny pieces of dye block.... and had to scoop them out, manually mix them with my fingers (no comment), and before anyone says anything, my temp was correct. HEHE

I'm guessing that the flakes are smaller and thus easier to melt and mix in?

Yeah the flakes are like thin...well flakes. Just picture almost like liquid dye, left to dry out and scraped with a scraper. They melt pretty easily in C-3. I tried just two colors to see if I like them, from my local supplier that I can walk in and pick up from. Liquids are easier, but if I can save on shipping and make something work, all the better. They're not bad to deal with. I get them from http://www.thenaturalartisan.com/SearchResults.asp?Search=dye

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My thought is this is asked so frequently that I don't think my opinion ever changes ... both suit my needs, but then you left out color blocks, which also suits my needs. And then there's the flakes ... but haven't had a desire to try them.

I couldn't have said it better myself!! :tongue2:

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A thought... with black... as with painting and other craft applications, using multiple colors with a similar hue along with black deepens the color.

That holds true with candle dyes also; unfortunately, with soy-based waxes, less is better. :undecided In soy, it will achieve a very dark gray value - as close to black as I have been able to get thus far with soy. We use it more in palm wax and it gives us a pretty true black without purple, blue or red tones. I DO like the liquid black for darkening lighter colors - ie. blue to navy blue; green to dark green, red to burgundy, etc. :tongue2: I do lean toward liquid because I like mixing colors a lot...:)

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All liquid here. I tried the chips, but it was (for me only of course) harder to keep consistent colors. Less than a drop was always a "skewer drop", but a drop is perfection (or 8 :D ). I couldn't measure small enough in the dye chips. Haven't tried blocks though.

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