Lasting Blood Stains for Fabric

[Bonnie Red Weasel]

It seems there's an awful lot of information online on how to remove blood stains, both genuine and theatrical (i almost said "man made" to a bunch of pirates...). However, i'm trying to do precisely the opposite. I'm trying to create realistic-looking "blood" stains on a few items of clothing. Because they're for reinactment purposes, and will be worn and washed over and over again, i'm looking for a method that will create stains that will look freshly old after laundering. Does that make any sense whatsoever?

Thanks in advance for any and all advice.

[Salty]

Try chockcherries and /or coffee grinds to give a dark, red brown look of blood. probably have to fix the chockcherry with alum , or another moderant. Now i dinae recall but if memory serves alum will fix the "stain".

Ye ships potter,

Salty

[theM.A.dDogge]

go to local butcher....blood blood everywhere...not a drop to drink....

no seriously....

[Silkie McDonough]

How about clothing dye?

I had to dye something the color of dried blood once and got a very good color with a combination of crinsom and black. Many parts red to few parts black.

[MorganTyre]

I second the use of real blood. Pigs blood is fairly easy to come by and is basically as realistic human as you can get. Splash it on, let it dry, rinse/hand scrub then wash. It's not for the squeamish but it'll get the right look. Keep in mind that dried blood stains are more brown than anything.

[Bonnie Red Weasel]

I just wanted to post an update. Taking your advice (and knocking the side of my head V-8 style for not thinking of it before), I used actual blood from the meat shop, and set the stains with heat. The resulting stains were good, but not quite dark enough for my tastes (perhaps it was the type of muslin, but the remaining stains were very faint, even without any detergent).

I just happened to have a handful of chokecherries from the little bush/tree I'm nurturing in my back yard, by the way, but on my test cloth, the resulting stain was more wine-colored than I liked.

So I played around with some Rit dyes, and ended up using a combination of liquid "dark brown", a touch of liquid "crimson" and some powdered "golden yellow" dyes, mixed roughly one part dye to twenty parts salted water, and again, let the dye dry naturally, then set the stain with the iron. The result was just what I was looking for - very close to the color of the actual blood, but a little more pronounced, and from the wash test, relatively colorfast.

Anyhow, thank you all for your advice!

[Captain Jim]

Thank you for sharing the recipe.

[Kenneth]

So I played around with some Rit dyes, and ended up using a combination of liquid "dark brown"

Thats what I use! Brown ritz liquid full strength in a spray bottle....Lets see some pics for effect!!

[Themarko]

You could try fabric paint, available at craft stores like Michaels. Once heat set it's pretty permanent and there's several possible choices for colors. I've used some dark brown thinned down a lot and looks a lot like dried blood.