How To Use Squeeze Bottles At Your Color Powder Run
Squeeze bottles can make throwing color powder on your runners a lot more accurate and a lot less messy. When throwing color powder on your runners, you usually have 3 options.
- Use your hands – this works but it tends to waste a lot of powder.
- Use a dixie cup or something similar – this is a better option and you will definitely use less powder than just digging in with your hands.
- Squeeze Bottles – in our opinion this is the best option. You will go through a lot less powder, be more accurate and your volunteers won’t get as dirty.
So how do you use squeeze bottles at your color powder run? Below are some Frequently Asked Questions about squeeze bottles.
Do I use bulk powder or packets to fill my squeeze bottles?
While you can fill your squeeze bottles with either bulk powder or individual packets, the best choice is bulk powder. It is less expensive and less time consuming than ripping open 8-10 packets to fill up one squeeze bottle.
How many squeeze bottles do I need?
That depends on how many color stations you will have, how many runners, how many volunteers and how large your bottles are. Typically, we recommend each volunteer throwing color powder at a color station has two 24 ounce squeeze bottles. This way they can usually get powder on two different runners at the same time and 24 ounces will last for several runners. Plus if one squeeze bottle runs out, they have a back up. Typically you will have a minimum of 2 volunteers throwing powder at your color station – 1 person on each side of the station. If you have a larger race, with more participants you may want to have 4 volunteers at each color station. So you would need between 4 to 8 per color station.
Shouldn’t I order enough squeeze bottles to pre-fill with all of my bulk powder?
You can do that if you like, and as much as we would like to make a sale, in our opinion you would be spending money you don’t need to. If you release your runners in waves, they will space out as they start running, so typically your volunteers have time to refill bottles in between groups of runners. If you are worried about it, you could order an extra couple of bottles for each station, so you have some on stand by.
How do I fill the bottles?
Our 24 ounce squeeze bottles are wide mouth squeeze bottles so they are super easy to fill. Just unscrew the top, dip the bottle into the powder and fill it up. We like having 5 gallon buckets at each color station filled with the powder. This makes it super easy to just dip your squeeze bottle in and fill up with powder. If you don’t want to use 5 gallon buckets, you can just open the bags that the powder comes in and fill from there but we recommend keeping the bag in a box so it is less likely to spill.
Tip for clean hands– if your volunteers are worried about staining their hands with the color powder, have them wear latex gloves when filling the bottles. No worries if they don’t, the powder will wash out.
So now I have them filled, how do I use them?
Just point and squeeze! That’s it! As your runner is going by point the squeeze bottle at them, aiming so the powder hits them between the chest and waist and squeeze your bottle.
How Much Does Each Squeeze Bottle Hold?
Our squeeze bottles are 24 ounces. When full they hold about a pound and a 1/2 of color powder.
How long will a squeeze bottle last?
Well that’s a little dependent on how heavy of a hand you have but you should be able to cover 10 to 15 people.
