Will Soda dye flowers?

Madelyn had the privilege of participating in the science project this year.

She was so excited! Mom, not so much! 

Madelyn loved the idea of dying flowers with colored water.  This is probably the oldest science project around. I did it as a kid. I remember friends doing it and my younger siblings doing it. I know of parents who have children older than mine that have done it. I didn't want her to do the same old boring thing. I wanted her to vary it up a bit. After many different suggestions she chose to pick three different colors and wanted to see which dyed the flower better? Colored water vs Soda.

She filled her jars and placed the flowers during the late afternoon just before dinner. 

When she woke up the next morning, about 14 hours later, the brown water flower had started to turn colors. 

But surprisingly it wasn't brown. The top 1/2 of the flower was blue. The lower 1/2 green. 

So she rotated the flower the best she could and the same thing happened by dinner that night. Now the petals had streaks of both blue and green. Blue and green does make brown but the color brown never appeared. 

As for the rest of the colors.....it was kind of a dud! There was just barely a hint of purple deep in the heart of the flower that was sitting in the purple water. We never did see any change in the orange flower. If we were to do it again we'd go heavier on the food coloring and less water. 

A week after the project was begun this was our results. The flowers may not have turned colors like we were expecting but they were still at least alive. The flowers that had been "nourished" by soda.....well they died! The petals shriveled up and the stem became so weak that the flower bent in half. When the top of the flower was touched it was very brittle. In fact when Madelyn picked the soda flowers up they broke at their bend.  Needless to say we've have many conversation's about our health and soda and why mom very rarely buys the stuff.

Who knew???

So to answer the original question, does soda dye flowers? Nope not for us at least.