Hi there,
I've been trying to find a way to preserve flowers with ethanol, glycol and glycerin but I'm having trouble with the flower transparency and color. Was wondering if anyone had similar issues or knew how to fix this?
I've been trying to do this with red roses. This is my process:
1. Soak the red rose in 100% ethanol for 24 hours. Flower gets dehydrated, and looses its color. The petals look pretty transparent.
2. Immediately soak the rose in a mix of propylene glycol, glycerin, ethanol, and dye for another 24 hours. I've used procion mx dye and food dye but they don't seem to work well as the color looks faded and patchy
3. Rinse the rose with alcohol to get the excessive PG and glycol out
I've attached an example of what my flower looks like.
I read something online about heating the flower to reduce transparency. Has anyone tried this? I put it in a microwave for a few seconds but that didn't work.
Here's a youtube video of the process. This was posted on another thread in the forum that is now closed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3u-4B7d0qo&t=411sAny help or insights would be greatly appreciated
Thank you!