I want to stain some pine cones, it is recommended to use food colouring but that was useless. I am looking for brightish reds/blue /green and will be for outdoor use, I dont want to paint them. Also non toxic to wildlife. Any one got recommendations.
Pine cones are naturally dark brown to begin with. You will need to bleach the surface pretty aggressively to make any dye show up.
Painting them is definitely your best bet. I can't think of any dyes that would be strong enough to make much difference to how a pine cone appears. The best you might get is brown with a hint of bright red.
If you could illuminate them with UV then eosin, rhodamine and the other dayglo dyes and pigments would work OK even on a dark ground.
Stains sold for microscopy are one option but read the MSDS carefully as some of them may be carcinogenic or suspected mutagens.
Most dyes aren't especially harmful to wildlife once they are bound to a matrix even if their solution is quite nasty. Powerful dyes will get everywhere if you are careless causing permanent staining. They are
*not* toys. (some may also cause contact dermititis)You can also buy fabric dyes in hardware stores but they tend to be very specific to working on wool or cotton fabrics so less effective on wood.
That maybe worth trying.
Doesn't matter what you use. It will fade outdoors.
Iron oxide doesn't fade, that's red. Carbon doesn't, that's black. You can also heavily dilute paint & use that for a dyed type effect.
NT
Green leaves don't fade until they drop off the tree.
Harry hasn't heard of natural pigments which his cave-dwelling ancestors used.
Modern car paints don't seem to fade (much) either.
Maybe not, but I suspect it takes constant metabolic processes to protect chorophyll from UV.
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