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Dyed eggs are as synonymous with Easter as chocolate bunnies, colorful baskets and lambs made out of butter. And the egg-dyeing process can seem like a simple one: mix, dunk, dry, done … right?! But the wrong technique can lead to splotchy eggs, stained fingers, and dye-splashed counters, turning a fun activity into a frustrating mess.

To help you really nail the egg-dyeing thing this year, we colored dozens of eggs and tested all of the buzzy hacks, so we could assemble a step-by-step plan for dying Easter eggs with food coloring. (You absolutely don’t need to buy a kit to produce rich, saturated colors. But we do have a few favorite egg-dyeing kits, if that’s your thing.) Now, let’s hop to it!

White eggs are a blank slate for pretty pastels and vibrant brights, but brown eggs can be dyed too. Darker colors, like blue and purple, are best for brown Easter eggs; lighter colors, like yellow and orange, can be harder to see on them.

Liquid food coloring is the easiest to mix and produces bright, bold colors. We’re now seeing it marketed as “liquid food color and egg dye.” We tested three kinds—Walmart’s Great Value Assorted Food Color and Egg Dye, Market Pantry Food Coloring and Egg Dye, and McCormick Assorted Egg Color and Food Dye—and we saw no noticeable difference among them.

We don’t recommend using gel food coloring (we used Favorite Day gel food colors in classic and neon). But if this is all you have, just be sure the gel is completely dissolved in the dye bath before you add an egg. If you’re using an egg-dyeing kit—like our top pick, the Dunk N’ Color kit—it should come with coloring tablets or powder.

We don’t recommend using gel food coloring. But if it’s all you have, just make sure the gel is completely dissolved in the dye bath before you add an egg.

Adding an acid to the dye bath helps the color adhere to the egg shell, making the color more saturated. If you don’t have any white vinegar in your pantry, lemon or lime juice will work just as well in a pinch.

Wide ceramic mugs or glasses make removing eggs easy, and the dye shouldn’t stain the vessels. You can also use disposable cups, if you prefer. No matter the material, to help prevent overflow, mugs or glasses should be large enough to hold at least 1 cup of water.

Disposable gloves make handling eggs easy, and they also protect your fingers from stains.

To prevent getting stains on your work surface, place thick craft paper, a piece of cardboard, or a plastic tablecloth under your dye cups.

Metal cooling racks with slats can be a convenient place for your eggs to drip-dry. If you have a griddled rack, like the Sur La Table Stainless Steel Cooling Grid, you can flip it over so the eggs will nestle on the underside. Just make sure it’s elevated so the dye doesn’t pool. Not a baker? Small plastic bottle caps can hold eggs upright while they dry.

Line an unrimmed baking sheet or a plastic cutting board with a rag or paper towels,  to catch the drips off the cooling rack. (Note: Dye can stain surfaces, so now is not the time to pull out a fancy wooden charcuterie board.) It’s not completely necessary to line a rimmed baking sheet, since there’s less risk of the dye running off the rack and onto your table.

After checking your raw eggs to make sure they’re clean and not cracked, give them a good washing (this helps the dye adhere better). Then follow your favorite hard-boiled egg recipe, to prep eggs for dyeing. We also followed the tip of keeping temperature changes as gradual as possible (don’t run hot eggs under ice-cold tap water to cool them, for example), which seemed to help.

If you’re not a hard-boiled-egg lover or you want to dye more eggs than you and your family can realistically eat hard-boiled, you can dye raw eggs. American eggs (boiled or raw) can be safely left out for up to two hours, according to the FDA.

Food coloring can stain porous surfaces and fabrics, so you need to protect your work surface. Dyeing eggs with kids? Expect curious fingers and a couple of inevitable spills. Play clothes or aprons are a must.

If you’re using a kit, follow package directions.

If you’re using liquid egg dye, line up your cups and add liquid food coloring, plus white vinegar or lemon juice (see quantities below), and mix together completely. Then add room-temperature water so the cup is no more than half-full. We repeat: half-full. You can always add more water once the eggs are in, but starting with less prevents your dye bath from overflowing. Before you dunk in an egg, be sure to stir the water into the vinegar coloring mixture. When we forgot this step, our eggs came out speckled in spots from vinegar bubbles. This is a look we kind of like, but it’s also one we imagine you’d only want to achieve intentionally.

The food coloring–to–vinegar ratio is not an exact science, but the vibrancy of your eggs depends on how much you add at the start.

If you’re using gel food coloring, use the ratio guide above, but dissolve the gel color first in ¼ cup warm water, and then add the vinegar and room-temperature water. We found that different colors dissolved differently—for example, orange was fine, but pink tended to be chunky, no matter how much we stirred. Let the dye bath reach room temperature before you add the boiled eggs, to keep them safe for eating.

Once the eggs are cool, it’s time to lower them into the room-temperature dye baths. (If you’re using a kit, it may require that you use warm water to dissolve the dye tablets or powder. Again, for safety reasons, allow the water to cool before you dip the eggs.) To avoid doing a balancing act, skip the spoon or egg dipper tool, and put on a pair of disposable gloves so you can use your hands. You’ll have more control, which means less splashing, which means less cleanup. Keep a rag or paper towel nearby so you can quickly wipe off any excess dye from your gloves as you go—essential if you want to avoid accidental color mixing.

Leave the eggs in the dye bath undisturbed for at least 5 minutes before you check them. (Remember: The longer you leave them, the more saturated the color will be, so patience is everything if you’re going for bold and bright.) Since eggs have a tendency to float on their side, it helps to rotate them at the halfway mark to ensure even color around the outside.

To avoid doing a balancing act, skip the spoon, and put on a pair of disposable gloves so you can use your hands. You’ll have more control, which means less splashing, which means less cleanup.

When your eggs reach just the right shade, it’s drying time. With plastic gloves on, pluck each egg out of the dye bath, give it a light shake (to remove any remaining dye droplets), and gently place it on your cooling-rack-and-baking-sheet setup. Keep that paper towel from before handy—you’ll definitely want to wipe your gloved fingers between extractions, to prevent unwanted fingerprints.

We searched the internet for egg-dyeing hacks and tried the ones that seemed the most promising. Although most were mediocre, our favorite is the drying-rack-baking-sheet technique. This technique is much more effective than returning eggs to their carton or cardboard kit (some of which come with perforated circles that you remove to make a drying station). That’s because it allows the air to hit the egg from all directions, not just the top and sides. We also tried using a spoon, a whisk, and egg dipper tools to remove eggs from the dye bath. Spoons are fumbly and result in dye being poured onto the drying tray. Egg dippers, depending on their design, can be awkward to hold and balance with. And though the whisk definitely grabs the egg from the cup more easily, you still have to use your fingers to pop the egg out. The verdict? You’re inevitably using your hands, so we think it’s better to just glove up and go for it. Wearing gloves to remove eggs is also the only way to totally avoid scratching off the dye.

Once the surface looks dry or tacky, use your gloved fingers to flip each egg over. A little bit of dye may pool at the bottom, so we found that rolling them over speeds up drying time and prevents water marks. When the eggs appear dry all around, slide the whole tray into the fridge for a few hours, to prevent the dye from smudging or transferring to another egg. No matter how hard you try, bubble dots and watermarks can be somewhat impossible to avoid. But we think they can be kind of cute and fun, like on our red egg above.

Once the dyed boiled eggs are completely dry, you can display them in a ceramic egg crate, a decorative basket, or a kitchen bowl, without worry of transferring colors. Just remember to return eggs to the fridge after two hours, and eat them within a week of boiling, for food-safety reasons. If you’ve dyed uncooked eggs, you should keep them in the fridge until you’re ready to cook with them.

This article was edited by Annemarie Conte and Marguerite Preston.

Taryn Mohrman is a freelance writer who reports on holiday topics for Wirecutter. She’s a former magazine director who has covered a range of lifestyle topics, including home design, cleaning and organizing, and parenting. She’s also the person who’s buying out the remaining stock of pumpkins in November for a Halloween story she’s working on for next October.

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