Blogger / 3 April, 2025 / Nanny Anita

Bicarb And Vinegar Egg Decorating

No matter how you dye eggs, as long as it involves vinegar, you are pretty much guaranteed for it to work.  Why?  Because the vinegar eats away at the eggshell, which is what is needed for the colour and patterns to get etched onto the shell.  Which is why this bicarb and vinegar egg decorating works well.  If you leave an egg long enough in vinegar, it will completely dissolve the shell away.  Which is a fun experiment to do.

Make sure you follow my Easter board on Pinterest for more ideas.  Don’t forget to save the pin for later.

To do you own bicarb and vinegar egg decorating you will need:

• Eggs
• Bicarbonate of soda
• Food colouring
• Water
• Vinegar
• Pipette
• Paint brush
• Muffin tray

There is a big thing now about how expensive eggs are and how it is turning a lot of people off from decorating eggs this year.  Which is a very valid point.  Of course you could use wooden eggs.  Or you could blow the eggs first.  That way you can still use the eggs in cooking, and you are left with an intact shell to decorate.  If you are worried about germs from blowing the egg yolks out, you can either use the old shake it all out method or use a pipette to suck it out.

To blow the insides of an egg out you need to make two wholes at the top and bottom ends of the egg.  Make the whole in the bottom larger than the one in the top.  Traditionally people would use a pin to do this, but I used a pointed (and cleaned) screwdriver.  I will say, this method does make the eggshells weaker, so it may not be the best to do with younger children who are heavy handed.

Once you have prepared your egg, you need to prepare the coloured paste.  Use one tbls of bicarb, 1 tsp of water, and some food colouring to mix into a paste.  You may need to add some extra water if it is too dry.  You do want the colours to be vibrant, otherwise they may wash away when you add the vinegar.

Using a paint brush, brush the paste onto your egg, making sure to cover the whole thing.

Next use the pipette to pipe vinegar over the egg.

Wait for the bicarb and vinegar to stop fizzing, then rinse it under some water and pat it dry.

If you enjoyed making these bicarb and vinegar egg decorating, be sure to check out my papier mâché Easter eggs, and 3D paper Easter eggs.

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