Name: April
Message: I'm looking for a stunt to incent students to donate money for a charity. I'm wondering if there is a safe way to die my body the school colors (maroon and gold) -- and a way that will fade in a week or less! Not surprisingly, I'm not finding much info on this on the web. How about Kool-aid for this "project?"

Food coloring is definitely the only way to go. Any dye that has not been tested for safety in food or cosmetics should be regarded as too dangerous to apply to yourself.

Kool-aid is certainly one option for food coloring. Would the strong perfume of the artificial fruit flavors be a good thing, or a bad thing, from your point of view? Be sure not to get the type that has sugar in it, because it would be sticky and might draw bugs.

You might also consider the little bottles of food coloring sold at the grocery store on the baking aisle. That's what I have used for this purpose. The yellow would be suitable for your gold, while the red would need a little bit of blue added to it to make maroon, as the red in those food coloring sets tends to be rather orangish. The best assortment of colors would be either the Wilton cake decorating colorings, usually found at crafts stores, or cosmetic colorings sold online for soap making. Be sure to buy only FD&C or D&C approved colorings if you look at soapmaking supplies.

The smoothest way to apply liquid food coloring is via air brush, if you happen to have a friend who has one, but if you do not, you can apply it with foam brush or a sponge. I tried both ways, over twenty years ago. The dye will not actually 'take' on your skin, since you will obviously not be using the high temperatures required to make the dye permanent, so it can rub off on almost anything you touch, especially if you are warm enough to perspire at all. A bit of care will prevent any permanent damage to anything. Avoid sitting on light-colored leather or non-washable upholstered furniture! It will require several showers, and several days, to get the last bit of dye off of your skin.


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