>The *hydrochloric acid* bath will heighten the blues if your water is
>alkaline, like ours. We have found that the blue gets quite faded after
>a half hour wash in our tap water. No wonder - I think the ph meter
>read 3.5! (Don't remember exactly, except it was VERY alkaline)
A pH of 3.5 is VERY acidic. (7 is neutral, 10 is max alkaline.) I would
suspect your tap water is about a pH of somewhere between 7.5 to 9. Anything
higher than that, and your skin would know it!
Sil Horwitz, FPSA
Technical Editor, PSA Journal
silh@iag.net