How to Make Red Water for Halloween

Whether your plans for Halloween are large scale and elaborate or on the simpler side, making red water that resembles blood is a great way to add some gore to the décor. Blood-red water can be used in countless ways for Halloween decorations and party games, and it's easy and inexpensive to make.

You can experiment with different ingredients to make different shades and thicknesses of red water so that it can resemble bloody water or oozing, real-life blood. With any applications for red water that will touch the skin, clothing or surfaces in the home, it's important to use a nontoxic, food-grade dye – red food coloring is ideal. You will also need to be careful to avoid stains.

Bright-red water is very easy to make – just add drops of red food coloring directly to water and shake or stir to blend. Keep adding more drops of food coloring until the water is the color you desire. To avoid stains while doing this, wear rubber gloves and an apron and work in an area that is easy to wipe clean, such as the sink. You can either prepare a larger amount of bright-red water in a bucket or plastic jug and then pour it into smaller containers for display or prepare the red water directly in those containers.

If the red water isn't going to touch anyone's skin or any important surfaces and you're certain it won't accidentally be consumed, you can use red acrylic paint instead of food dye. Pour a small amount of paint into the water, shake or stir and add more paint as needed. This option gives you access to a wider range of red shades than what is available with food coloring.

Red food coloring and water alone result in a bright-red shade of water. For a more realistic shade of blood-red water, add a tiny amount of blue and a tiny amount of green food coloring to the water in addition to the red. This will require some experimentation to get the shade right, but always use much more of the red in proportion to the blue and green.

Bright-red and blood-red water resemble water that's been mixed with blood, giving the gory impression of a bloody accident taking place in or near the water. If you want a mixture that looks more like blood itself, add corn syrup and cornstarch as thickeners. Start by blending three parts corn syrup to one part water and adjust the ratio to get the viscosity you desire. Add 1 tablespoon of cornstarch per cup of blood and mix in red food coloring until the color is to your liking. As with the blood-red water, try adding a few drops of blue and green food coloring for a more realistic shade of fake blood.

Instead of adding red food coloring in a fountain or swimming pool, purchase special pool dye from a pool supply store. It's inexpensive and formulated especially for pools, so it's nontoxic and nonstaining and filters out within a few days. Follow the directions on the packaging, which will generally tell you to mix a certain amount of the dye with water in a bucket and then pour that mixture directly into the pool or fountain.

Bottles, jars and jugs of fake blood or red water make excellent Halloween decorations. You could fill clear-glass vessels with the red water or create a jug of fake blood and make vintage-looking labels reading "potion," "vampire blood" or "bat's blood." Make gory specimen jars by filling large screw-top jars with red water and adding, for example, ping-pong balls with marker-drawn eyes, plastic fake fingers, spiders, bats, rats or frogs. Cut a piece of cauliflower to look like a preserved brain. Put a bloody spin on the traditional bobbing-for-apples game by floating the apples in a container of red water.

A swimming pool full of red water is an unforgettable centerpiece for a Halloween pool party. You could float (or let sink) plastic skeletons, bats and spiders in the pool. Plastic and real pumpkins will float in a pool too. After dark, make the red water even spookier by floating white latex gloves that are inflated and tied up with a glow stick inside.