How to Make Colorful, Scented Resin

On April 1st, we debuted Scratch-N-Sniff Resin: a material that smells as good as it looks. It was an April Fool’s prank, but Formlabs Engineer Craig Broady wondered if he could make it real. So, he took on the challenge of creating his own Scratch-N-Sniff Resin. He recalls, “I saw the Scratch-N-Sniff prank on April 1st, and I was like, ‘That’s not real — that’s just spray paint. I can make a real version myself.’”

On April 1st, we debuted Scratch-N-Sniff Resin as an April Fool’s prank — but you can make a real version with just a few ingredients.

Craig and Materials Engineer Rachel Davis tested out different proportions of the three main ingredients: Clear Resin, dye, and fragrance oil. The process was simple. They added a bit of red dye and strawberry fragrance oil to a bottle of Clear Resin and shook it until the liquids combined. Then they went through the printing process as usual. In just a few easy steps, you can use their tested ratio to make your own sweet-smelling prints.

 What You’ll Need
What You’ll Need
Form 1+ or Form 2 3D printer
200 mL Clear Resin
0.2 g dye
5 mL fragrance oil

Directions

Add the dye, fragrance oil, and resin to a jar with a lid. Shake the ingredients together until fully combined. Form 1+: pour the mixture into a clean resin tank and print as usual. Form 2: set your printer to Open Mode. Pour the mixture into a clean resin tank and print as usual.

Craig and Rachel created vibrant snail and strawberry prints that smell like real strawberries.

This simple recipe opens up endless opportunities for fragrant, colorful prints. Add dye to your resin to prototype vibrant products, or make 3D printed gifts even better by giving them a delicious smell. You can use these proportions to add a variety of scents and colors to your projects, printing any design that you can imagine.

By Formlabs