Turmeric Invisible Ink

Materials you'll need

• Baking soda
• Warm water
• Small bowls
• Paintbrush
• White paper
• Turmeric powder
• Clear hand sanitizer
• Paper towels (optional, to protect your table)

 

Step-by-step tutorial

Step 1: In a small bowl, mix baking soda with warm water and stir until it's dissolved into a milky-white solution.

Step 2: Dip a clean paintbrush into the invisible ink and paint any design you like onto a sheet of white paper. The wet lines will barely show up, and that's exactly the point.

Step 3: Let the paper dry completely. Once it's dry, your design will have disappeared.

Step 4: In a second small bowl, mix turmeric powder with clear hand sanitizer until it forms a smooth, golden-orange paint. Pro tip: slide some paper towels under your paper before the next step to keep your table clean.

Step 5: Paint the turmeric mixture over your dried paper and watch your hidden design magically reappear in reddish-brown.

Learn more

This disappearing-and-reappearing trick comes down to a natural color-changing chemical in turmeric called curcumin. It's what gives turmeric its bright yellow color. Curcumin stays yellow around neutral things like plain paper, but it turns reddish-brown as soon as it touches a base, which is the chemistry term for substances like baking soda. So when you paint the turmeric mixture over your page, only the spots hiding baking soda turn red and reveal your picture, while the rest of the paper stays sunny yellow.