Pump Spray for Homemade Fixative

I’ve written a couple articles in the past on homemade fixatives made from casein or CMC powder, but the aerosol sprayer I’ve been using made by Preval has proven to be unreliable. When it works, it works great; unfortunately, I’ve bought some that either only work for a few sprays or not at all, and had to be exchanged at the store. I suppose the compressed air inside sometimes leaks, so I’ve been hunting for a more reliable spray device, and think I’ve found it.

I had a conversation recently with an artist who wanted my opinion of the Spectrafix fixative, and I said that I had only tested the older pump spray bottle design which I found unsatisfying, since the droplet size from the spray was too large to get good consistent coverage. However, I looked at their new designed bottle online, and saw that they had a different kind of mister with a trigger style mechanism that this artist said worked well. This put me on the hunt for something similar as an improvement to the Preval sprayer.

Using an internet search phrase of “ultra fine mister” I saw that there were several types similar to the Spectrafix design with the same sort of trigger mechanism that were empty refillable bottles. The cheapest I saw was $5.50 not including shipping, which seemed a bit pricey to me, so I set that aside as something to purchase later at some point. Recently, I was at the store shopping for some dish soap, and saw a bottle of Dawn “Powerwash” on the shelf that had a similar type of trigger handle. It was only $5, so I decided to try it out. At home I poured all the soap into another jar, rinsed the bottle with clean water, and sprayed water a few times to clean out as much soap as possible from the handle. I then filled the bottle with some CMC fixative I had made. The spray worked very well. It gave me a very fine mist with a small particle size, much better that any other pump style sprayers I had tried in the past.

Comparing this to the Preval sprayer, it appears to be much more reliable since there’s no compressed air to deal with, so I won’t have to buy a new can when air runs out. As long as the mechanical handle doesn’t break, it should last a long time. It also holds more liquid than the Preval. However, this sprayer doesn’t give me a continuous spray like the Preval. I have to rapidly squeeze the handle to try and get even coverage. Since the mist is very fine, that’s not a big deal, and after doing a couple coats of fixative I should get all the drawing covered, but it might be a bit tiring if I’m spraying a large drawing. The Preval is especially good for thin paint because of that continuous spray. I’ll keep using this sprayer for awhile, and see how well it holds up. I might also buy one of those empty sprayers I saw online, and see if they work better in some way. The immediate difference I noticed is they hold less liquid; 10oz compared to the 16oz in the Dawn sprayer, and cost more.