Hello All,

I truly need your help. I purchased all of the Americolor paste and Amerimist colors. Now that I have them I am having a problem with the Navy blue. I expected to get a true navy blue or at least close to a navy blue. It is a horrible bluish-green. NOT NAVY BLUE. I started with white buttercream icing and I am not sure what went wrong. I almost used the whole bottle and still didn't get a NAVY BLUE color. I have heard so many wonderful things about Americolor and that is why I purchased that brand. So if any one has any suggestions please let me know....

Thanks in advance....Kim

I haven't used the Navy Blue but the Americolors I have used have been great. Maybe it is a bad batch of Navy Blue or maybe you could try adding a touch of black to it to get rid of the greenish tint.
Not sure if it will work or not. Maybe somone else can give you more help.

Lazy_Susan

I think black might help in this case.

We are sorry you are having trouble / Its probably not the color but in the slight case it is please give me the lot # listed on the bottle. We can compare it to our lab sample (We keep sample of every batch made for quality control)

Lets start from the beginning. typically you need to use 1/4 to 1/2 oz. to a pound of icing

You probably do not have a Ph meter, but does the icing have some thing like cream of tarter or any thing that could cause it to be acidic or too alkaline

What are the light conditions? (Ultraviolet rays affect food colors)


Really hard to say what is wrong but lets start with the lot #

We 100% guarantee our product so if the product is defective we will replace it

Hello and thanks for everyones tip.

Ok, Colorboy.....thanks for your help. Here is the Lot# on the bottle....1133C. Unforuntely, I used the whole .75 bottle on 3 cups of buttercream icing. The ingres. are butter, shortening, vanilla, milk, corn syrup that is it. Now the other colors that I have tried has worked really well with the same icing recipe. I make re-enlistment cakes for different department in the US Navy. I was really excited to find a navy blue color so that I can create different designs with this color. I couldn't wait until I got them in the mail. I tried to mix the navy blue and was very disappointed. I even allowed it to set in a covered bowl trying to see if it would darken over time like some of the reds. However, that never happened. We are in Naples, Italy and NOOOOO ultravoilet lighting here. Lighting here is very dim..... So, if there is something else I need to do to acheive this color please let me know. I have to first purchase some more.

Thanks in advance,
Kim

Here's a thought. The problem might be because your buttercream recipe contains butter which is usually a shade of yellow. Yellow and blue will make green. So that might be why you are getting a blue-green as opposed to a true blue. If you need true blue try using a pure white icing for those parts. HTH!

I make my buttercream with regular butter (yellowish) and I've used Navy Americolor and it's worked great. Hmmm.

Hello ladies sorry for the delay in responding we went sking in the Italian Alps....what fun....

Dydemus and Candyladyhelen,
Thanks for your comment. Now, in a normal batch of B/C icing how much of the coloring paste do you use? In a batch of 3 cups of icing I used the whole .75 bottle of Navy Blue. What could I be doing wrong? I really need to get this right!!!!! What type of icing recipe do you all use? Anything you can tell me please let me know. Thanks again Kim

thanks for the lot # We will check our lab sample

by the way where did you get it? it is an old bottle

Hello Colorboy,
Thanks for looking into this for me. I purchased all 3 kits of paste color and the 2 airbrush kits for earlenescake.com....She was the only one that I could find that had all of the colors all together. Is there an expiration date on colors? Since you said that it was old is that why I am not getting true color? Because if so, I have all these colors that I paid about $100.00 for that aren't good. Please..Please let me know.

Thanks again, Kim

the color should be fine, after a few years the gel will break down but the color remains intact It is best used within one year. All the product that cake central buys is new...they cant keep the stuf in so they have a good turnaround and dont backorder or have old stock

so all your colors should be fine, We did find a problem with our Navy Blue test batch, we were still able to reach a navy blue but it took way too much. We are very sorry you got a bad batch and our quality control did not catch it. (Actually we had no complaints on that color in three years) We want to be perfect but if we make a mistake we own up to it. We will send you a replacement please send me a private message with your contact information

If I may make a suggestion.... to achieve navy blue at the bakery, I use royal blue, or whatever color you have for a nice rich blue, and a few drops of purple to darken it, not black. Black ususally gives it almost a dirty appearance, not just darkening it in my experience. Give it a try, it should work.