One of the Best Recipes for Fake Blood Uses Poisonous Kodak Photo-Flo

Need to add some fake blood to your photo shoot? Instead of going the digital route, you can easily whip up some realistic fake blood using recipes developed for Hollywood movies. The 2-minute video above is a quick look at some of the fake blood recipes that were used over the past decades.

One of the most famous fake blood recipes was concocted by legendary Hollywood makeup artist Dick Smith, who worked on movies such as The Godfather and The Exorcist. Here are the ingredients you’ll need to recreate his faux blood:

• 1 quart white corn syrup
• 1 level teaspoon methyl paraben
• 2 ounces Ehlers red food coloring
• 5 teaspoons Ehlers yellow food coloring
• 2 ounces Kodak Photo-Flo

You’ll notice that the last ingredient is Kodak Photo-Flo, a darkroom product that decreases water surface tension and helps to minimize water marks and drying streaks on photographic film. Here’s the rub: Photo-Flo is poisonous when consumed…

So, you’ll probably want to avoid using Smith’s famous recipe if there’s any chance of the fake blood getting into your model’s eyes or mouth. To make the fake blood less toxic, there are safer liquids you can use (e.g. creamer) as a substitute for Photo-Flo.

(via Great Big Story via Laughing Squid)