SKC Test Drive: 4 Easter Egg Decorating Kits–see which ones worked and which ones didn’t!

Last year, the kids and I bought a “Paas Marble” Easter Egg Decorating Kit. The beautiful tones, the mesmerizing swirls of color…looks cool, right?

Nope. Wrong. It doesn’t look cool. It looks sad. Like Easter got cancelled. There goes $3 plus all my Easter dreams up in smoke.

This year, I decided to brush off the disappointment from 2016’s egg decorating disaster and try, try again. I went to a couple different stores and picked up four different decorating kits so I could try these things out before someone else goes a’wastin’ their money.

(Click on the images to enlarge the size)

24K Eggs

If you’re looking to really class up your Easter Egg game, this looks like the kit for you. The eggs on the box look fresh from the derrière of the Golden Goose, himself. How hard can this be?

Pros: The package comes with a pack of 5 color dye tablets which, when mixed properly, result in bright and vivid colored eggs. Easy enough. The trouble starts with the “gold”–although I do believe that with some trial and error and a moderate amount of skill, you might be able to pull this off (if you’re an adult; kids don’t have a shot). If you look at the bottom of this page, you’ll see one we rolled the bottom half in the gold and it’s a neat effect.

Cons: Per package directions, the “gold” coloring is to be applied with a small sponge (included) after you’ve colored your eggs (or you can use plain white for a simple gold colored egg which is never going to work and is a complete lie). When using the sponge to apply to gold, it comes out all bubbly and weird no matter what technique we used. After ditching the sponge, we tried paint brushes (streaky) and paper towels (rubs off the gold and the color)—finally we just rolled the egg in the gold which kind of worked as long as you don’t like a consistent color over the entire egg.

Grade: C – (could maybe be a B with enough effort, but will never be an A and could quickly be an F)

Hippie Dip

Groovy man! This gives me a similar excitement to the “Marble” kit I bought last year, but I’m trying to stay positive. The package claims “Really cool Easter eggs in just seconds” that you make by rolling a colored egg in a tie-dyed cheesecloth to get the cool mixes of color. We’ll see.

Pros: Again, the color tablets don’t disappoint—they are bright and consistent. This kit also comes with the required cheesecloth (although not much of it). That’s about where the positives end.

Cons: This kit is messy! You definitely need some extra newspaper lining your workspace to soak up all the dye that you’ll be dripping on the cheesecloth. Once we began the process, we couldn’t get the tie-dye color to transfer to the egg enough to be noticeable. We tried several times using several different techniques and all the eggs came out with only very subtle specks.

Grade: F (no amount of technique can save this)

 
 Crushed Crystal Dyes

A completely different take on egg coloring, this kit has you dumping colored crystals in a plastic baggie (all included) to create your “brightest eggs yet!”

Pros: I liked how all the color was contained in the bags with no messy bowls of solution. The colors are bright, but also gives it an inconsistent speckled color which I actually like. You can also mix colors which gives a cool effect.The kits’ main offering is the unique color solution, but it does come with stickers, also.

Cons: After you’ve applied color, an adult will need to remove the egg from the bag to wipe off the extra crystals so it’s not 100% kid-friendly from beginning to end. If you’re coloring a lot of eggs, don’t solely rely on this kit– he crystals go quick and barely colored a dozen eggs.

Grade: B (loved the “neatness” factor and the color effects were pretty)

Glitter Eggs

Do you want Easter eggs that glitter like a disco ball? Of course, you do!

Pros: This kit comes with 7 colored dye tablets (although the package claims 6, maybe we got a freebie?) which are again, nice and bright (pretty sure the Easter egg decorating folks got this color dye thing down to a science now). Once the eggs are colored, you apply the glitter using this nifty little glitter shaker which I found to be quite sturdy and mess-proof. Score!

Cons: For the couple eggs, the glue (included) worked great. We applied the glue, rolled the eggs in the glitter shaker and the end result was very nice! On the third egg however, the glue squeezed and gasped out in one big dried chunk and that was the end of our fun. The two eggs we had were really pretty but not for handling afterwards as the glitter rubs off pretty easily.

Grade: A – (bring your own glue to the party and this one’s a winner!)

BONUS

Our favorite egg was created using two different kits. We first dyed an egg in the blue color from the Crushed Crystal kit. We then swirled it with the 24K Eggs gold. Pretty isn’t it? And finally, our finished batch.

 

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