Thursday, October 14, 2010

A little experiment.

I've usually said a big fat NO to floral sprays and preservatives for my flowers after I have designed and made them into the beautiful floral creations you see in many of my photos.  But after reading some recent blog posts in some of my favorite florist industry blogs (UBloomJTV), I was re-thinking this and wondering if I had been making a mistake for all these years.  I am always learning new things, ALWAYS.  I'm open to suggestions by those who have gone before me and admiring the up and coming new designers and current trends.

With that said I decided to put 4 "floral preservers" to the test.
The contenders from left to right:
Floralife Finishing Touch, Floralife Crowning Glory
Prestine and Design Master Clear Life



























We did this experiment with standard daisy pom flowers.
As you can see on the pink papers it shows the product and the time that the photo was taken.  We started at noon on a Friday.
I decided to add one with no treatment at 5pm Friday. As you see below, one day later,  25 hours later on Saturday.  Here is in order of best looking and freshest day two:
1.  Clear Life
2.  No treatment
3.  Crowning Glory
4.  Prestine
5.  Finishing Touch (an industry favorite)




























Another 24 hours later on Sunday at 1:00  Day 3:
In order of freshest/strongest to weakest:
1.  Clear Life
2.  Crowning Glory
3.  No treatment
4.  Pristine
5.  Finishing Touch (still an industry favorite?)


The winner!!!  Clear Life by Design Master.  It is an aerosol spray, kind of like hairspray.
I still took note on Monday (sorry no photos), at 8am and it still looked as fresh as the day I picked it.
Crowning Glory was still pretty to the eye, but a little droopy.  Pristine and Finishing touch still looked worse than the daisy with no treatment.


10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for that experiment, it was really helpful and I felt like it was a science project from high school( w/out the test). The way you made it a 3 day experiment made me anxious for the results! I might need to get a life huh? Great job! ~Kelly

julie harmsen said...

that's crazy that some of them killed the flowers faster than using nothing. you should send this to the winning product!

Monique said...

Thanks for the scientific method :)! You should send this link to Design Master!!!

Sprout said...

Fabulous! I've resisted finishing sprays as well, may reconsider. Thanks for sharing. ;-)

Necoh said...

I've always used Crowning Glory, but recently the Finishing Touch.
Great experiment!!!

Necoh said...

Clear Life, I've used Clear Life and Crowning Glory, NOT the other!
wooo it must be late!

Janet said...

Interesting! Thanks for sharing!

Jay said...

Stacey-
I am pleased to see that you research products for use in your shop; however, one must be very careful in how experiments are carried out. Scientific experiments contain a minimum of three (3) repetitions using multiple flowers in each repetition. The reason for this is the variability you can have in a box of flowers; the results can simply be attributed to this variability.

Where you have shown Design Masters to have won Round One, a true conclusion cannot really be made using this data.

I am also curious as to why you tested using just the flower head with no stem?

Unknown said...

Thank you for sharing !

Anonymous said...

This was a very useful experiment, but I would like to know whether you kept the treated flowers at room temperature or in a refrigerator. Thanks!