Genius Hour 1.3

Horror Movie Special Effects Makeup:

If you refer back to my very first blog post where I made a burn wound, you'll find that I was rather dissatisfied with the fake blood that I had bought. This week I decided to deviate from my original plan of making a fake surgical incision and instead test different recipes of homemade fake blood. There's a ridiculous amount of fake blood recipes on the internet, so I selected five that looked the most promising.

The original recipes:
1. 1 Tbsp flour, 1 cup water, red food dye, 1/2 Tbsp cocoa powder
2. 1 cup powdered sugar, 1 Tbsp cocoa powder, 1/2 cup water, red food dye
3. 1 cup corn syrup, 2 Tbsp chocolate syrup, red food dye
4. 2/3 cup chocolate syrup, 1/3 cup laundry detergent, red food coloring
5. 1 package plain gelatin, 2 bottles red food coloring, 1 Tbsp green food coloring, 1-5 gallons of water

After I made each recipe, I put it on a white cloth to see how it would look on clothing. Considering how sticky and annoying to clean up all of the mixes are except for mix 1, I didn't test any of them on my skin except for 1.

The results:

1 was definitely my favorite recipe. The flour and cocoa powder thickened the water to just the right consistency, it splattered well, and it wasn't too sticky to use for cosmetics. However, I probably won't be using it on the face.

2 was my runner up, it also had a good consistency and color. Making this was a bit difficult at first, as the recipe did not specify ingredient amounts. However, I was able to use my knowledge of baking and making powdered sugar glazes to estimate a good starting point and I worked from there.

3 was all around not fun. The corn syrup and chocolate syrup refused to fully incorporate and kept separating. It was also horribly thick and didn't splatter well. It tasted good though, so that was a bonus.

While I was making recipe 4, I realized that I only had blue laundry detergent instead of clear. At that point I couldn't be bothered to go out and buy clear detergent, so I decided to try the blue and see what would happen. The chocolate syrup and red food coloring removed the blue color, instead leaving the mixture more brown. This would be a pretty good mix for imitating old blood.

5 was a catastrophe. I had to massively scale down the original recipe, as I didn't really want 5 gallons of fake blood. In the scaling down, my math must have been off somewhere as I ended up with some weakly dyed, pink water. Heating up and cooling the gelatin was a pain, so I probably won't ever try that recipe again.