TL;DR: Skip to "Results and Observations"
So I purchased, received, and chemically tested the famous "Liquid Psilocybin" from vendor TripWithScience. You can find the whole process painstakingly detailed below1. The results need some interpretation and I need your help and experience to make the call.
Supplies:
Supply | Purpose | Details |
---|---|---|
Ehrlich Reagent | Testing Chemical | "Yes/No" test for indoles, of which psiloc(yb)in is one. Expected result for presence of indoles is a change from clearish to basically any shade of purple in 5 to 30 seconds. (In one rare case, there is a chemical that takes 24 hours to produce a result, which is a distinct robin's egg blue; however, I found no other documentation wherein psychedelic indoles required a reaction time of greater than 3 minutes.) |
Marquis Reagent | Testing Chemical | Identification test for a wide range of substances. I chose Marquis as there are unconfirmed by gas chromatography reported differences in reaction results between psilocybin, psilocin, and 4-AcO-DMT. Frequent critics of this product often claim that the liquid is in fact 4-AcO-DMT suspended in ethanol, rather than the advertised psiloc(yb)in. In anticipation of a positive (purple) result from the Ehrlich test, I also ordered the Marquis test to try and make that determination. |
White Ceramic Dish | Testing Medium | Ceramic is reusable and withstands the particular chemicals in the reagents used in these tests; moreover, it provides an open, unobstructed view of the samples for capturing on film |
Spiral-Bound Notebook Paper | Drying Medium and Control Sample | Only the wide top margin was used in order to avoid bringing any of the blue or red line inks into the reaction. I tested many, many types of paper for reactions with the reagents before settling on this one. Due to the plant material in paper, it's pretty much always going to have a small reaction with the Marquis reagent. This particular paper had the smallest reaction (a light-to-medium yellow) out of all I had access to. |
TripWithScience's "Liquid Psilocybin" | Supposedly Active Substance for Testing | I received six vials from my purchase. In the test you see below, only the contents of one of those vials is tested.2 |
Melatonin, 3mg | Control Sample | Melatonin, an over-the-counter supplement used as a sleep-aid, is an indole and naturally reacts strong purple with Ehrlich's reagent. Crushed melatonin is shown in the Ehrlich test video to show the reagent is active and reacting as expected.3 |
Aspirin, 50mg | Control Sample | Aspirin is one of the many over-the-counter substances that has an easily recognizable reaction with Marquis reagent. Crushed aspirin is shown in the Marquis test video to show the reagent is active and reacting as expected.3 |
Method:
Two similar strips of paper were placed in a clean environment. The product was liberally applied to the strips of paper, and spread around with a clean spoon.4 Once product fully covered each strip, they were left in a cool, dark place until dry (appx. 15 minutes). You can see my method of preparing the substance for testing here: Animated GIF, duration: appx. 35 seconds5
Two separate ceramic dishes were prepared in the same manner, one for each reagent test.
a. Control substance in top left hand corner
b. Smaller control strip of paper to the right of the control substance
c. Larger presumed-active product sample below the control strip of paper
d. Smartphone on stopwatch mode
In each test, the reagent in question is placed on the items to be tested in the following order:
a. Control substance
b. Control strip of paper
c. Presumed-active product sample
Smartphone stopwatch function is activated and results are observed on camera for 3 to 5 minutes; constant observation continued after filming ceased for an additional half hour; observation then shifted to every five minutes for an additional half hour, then every hour for an additional six hours.6
You can see me complete the Ehrlich Test here: Animated GIF, duration: appx. 60 seconds
You can see me complete the Marquis Test here: Animated GIF, duration: appx. 68 seconds
Reactions:
Ehrlich Reagent There was initially NO reaction with the Ehrlich reagent, not even a gradual change, until around the 16-minute mark, in which it produced a very reddish purple. After sitting for quite a few hours, it permanently settled into a blueish purple.
You can see the progression, including all above hues, here: PNG Image
Marquis Reagent The Marquis reagent also had no quick initial reaction like I was expecting, but it had a quicker pick-up time, turning tan-ish at 30 seconds, red-brown at 2 minutes, and a dark orange/dark reddish brown at 3 minutes. This final color persisted until around 12 minutes, at which time the paper fibres themselves began to break down completely, giving us an icky boiled-chicken-blood kind of visualization.7 At the 60-minute mark, we were left with the very impressive sight of no more paper where there had once been paper, now just a horrible dark-brown mess of liquid plant material.
You can see the Marquis color progression here: PNG Image
You can also see the 12-minute mark here: PNG Image, "Boiled Chicken Blood" and the 60-minute mark here: PNG image
Results and Observations:
Personally, I was not fully convinced the product I received was "liquid psyloc(yb)in," therefore did not ingest the product. However, I am more confused with the results than I am certain the product was falsely advertised.
The Ehrlich reagent did eventually turn purple, with heavy emphasis on "eventually". It took 16 minutes to get even a small response, and 5 hours to get a definitive purple. That seems to indicate there is some sort of indole having a very, very slow reaction with the reagent. Please, correct me if I am wrong, but I had been under the impression that any of the three target substances (psilocybin, psilocin, or 4-AcO-DMT) would have had a much more immediate reaction.
The Marquis reagent did have a reaction, albeit also a slower-than-expected one. According to this source8,
a. 4-AcO-DMT is not a candidate, as it would have required grey-green with a precipitate forming eventually. Even after many hours, a precipitate did not form, and I would not consider any of the colors to have been any shade of green
b. Psilocin is not a candidate, as it would have required a light-green that turns to olive green reaction, which it most certainly was not
c. Psilocybin is a possible but maybe unlikely candidate. "Brown" would be the expected reaction according to the above colorimetrics; moreover, there is no mention of color x that turns to color y, and we definitely showed a gradient that leaned more toward the reddish side than brownish side.
d. Just looking at my reaction's colors side-by-side and comparing them to the Bunk Police's extensive list9 of reported reactions,
the only thing I can really come up with is something in the 2C-T family, with my closest guess being 2C-T-7? Chemically and in physical/psychedelic effects, it's very similar to psiloc(yb)in and its analogs, so if this were the active ingredient in the product, that would explain reviews that seem to indicate a shroom trip?it's quite clear that I'm not experienced in this enough to even speculate, thus my providing the raw data and humbly asking for assistance.
I'm really at a loss for identifying a most-likely candidate - maybe you can read the results better?
Personal Note: This particular product has been up for debate (on Reddit, at least) for as long as it's been around, and I figured since I wanted to try it out anyway, I would document the process. Due to the low amount of data on testing this particular substance, especially in liquid format, there was some serious trial-and-error to find the best testing medium, drying medium, reaction times, etc. The results you are seeing are the product of trial-and-error, two days' wasted samples, and multiple bottles of product/reagent. Please let me know if you take issue with any of the data or have sources to back up or refute my information. Be gentle with me and with each other! I'm an impartial observer just trying to do science.
Footnotes:
1 As for vendor quality, I agree with all other reviews that Trip was ASTOUNDING. Fast shipping, friendly communication, absolutely astounding stealth. As for product quality, I cannot vouch for the tripping experience, as I personally did not feel I could definitively know what I was ingesting and DO NOT ingest any substance that I cannot definitively identify. If someone can offer a convincing arguement (e.g. "No, the normal Ehrlich reaction for psilocin is always multiple hours, here's some data showing that"), I will happily take the vials and give a trip report.
2 In quite a few of my initial tests, I had separate active samples from all six of the vials for both reagents (a total of 12 samples per test circuit). After many failures to receive results that I was able to record for reporting purposes (hey, if I just say I saw it turn brown, no one would believe me), I gave up on the idea of testing each of the vials and instead used a very liberal amount of a single vial
3 Much care was taken to ensure the crushed control substances did not contaminate the substance for testing (product)
4 Usage of such a large amount of product on such a large drying medium was deemed necessary after previous tests showed that the slight reaction Marquis reaction had with the plant material in the paper made it quite difficult to capture the very subtle shades of color in smaller-scale tests.
5 Due to the nature of what we're doing here, I understand that everyone is overly paranoid and prone to thinking up conspiracy theories one way or another. I can vouch for myself and say that I painstakingly did these tests over and over and over to get it just right for you guys to be able to see whatever results may be and draw your conclusions from there. That being said, I tried very hard to take special care to assuage some of your worries, so I did not cut frames out of my recordings when I edited them and made them into GIFS. Editing was purely necessary to add still-frames and commentary, and provide some much needed fast-forwarding. Otherwise, you're just sitting there watching paint reagent dry.
6 Observation of the Marquis test was ended at around two hours. The entirety of the paper drying medium had been consumed by the reagent, and no subsequent color changes had been made since appx. 30 minutes after applying the reagent.
7 Surely you cook chicken, right? Don't look at me like I'm crazy, you know exactly the color I'm talking about. You're making me look unprofessional, here.
8 Nexus Forum post on Colorimetrics: https://www.dmt-nexus.me/forum/default.aspx?g=posts&m=296264#post2962641
9 Bunk Police's Marquis Reagent Reaction Chart: http://www.bunkpolice.com/wp-content/uploads/Marquis-Infographic61.jpg. Note that the additional colorimetrics below the main circle are widely reported but not confirmed by gas chromatography.
As a noob, I have nothing of value to add, but I would like to just say THANK YOU for what sure sounds like a hella lot of hard work for the good of the community.