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I am new to dropper bottles. Some questions:

1: Often when I shake them, I then unscrew the cap and find the paint is being forced out the tip by air. Is this normal? Is there a technique to avoid this?

2: Storage. If I store a dropper bottle on its side (or it falls over in the drawer I have) does the paint leak out of the tip into the cap? Is this really what might be happening in 1?

3: The ball bearing inside thing. How does that work? I mean, how do you put it in etc)

Thanks for the time as usual.

1: yeah, that happens, idk why
2: yeah, it can depending on the bottle and how tightly you screw it.
3: it agitates the paint so it mixed better. You just grab the nozzle and pop it off.

Agreed on the above points, I just made a post in another thread that is what I'd say to this one too:

shmvo wrote:
I have done this... It is definitely worth it! The process of actually transferring the paint into a new bottle is pretty painless, but I did have issues with the dropper bottles I bought.

I think the issue is that the standard dropper bottles aren't really designed in a way that makes them easy to open and fill up; like you said there is leakage and drying around the seam where you reasemble them.

When/ if I do it again, I'll probably go with a bottle that is more like what Kimera use for their miniature paints:





More like what you'd see craft paints in; it's got a screw-on lid with a flip top. I don't think you'd get any of the drying issues that way.

...Unless you mean you have paints that orignally came with dropper bottles, in which case I don't have anything useful to say...

1 - air pocket.
When that happens I squeeze the bottle to let as much air out, then try to suck up spilled paint with the bottle.

2 - I never had them leak out HOWEVER! Took me painting kit to camp one time. The bottles where in the sun all day and some laid on the side.
Laying on the side plus the heat created massive air pocket inside, and when i opened the cap ALot of paint got forced out.
Ended up removing the dropper piece and scooping some paint back.
Try ti keep em upright and in the shaded area

3 - I just ordered some balls of steel! from GS world. cant wait to get em
Unscrew cap, remove dropper head piece, drop bearing in, reassemble it.


I did try to find some nifty bottles on amazon, but couldn't find any among hundreds because cheepo bottles wont seal right, and will dry up the paint. So be careful what the bottles you get.

Glass beads work better than steel.
Steel rusts (unless it's proper "marine grade" stainless steel, and even then, MG Stainless will still corrode - you just don't have to be as careful with it) and the iron oxide WILL stain your paints.

Glass doesn't react with paints. It's chemically inert. Cannot corrode. Oxide issues won't happen.

Good information and I appreciate it. These did come in a dropper bottle.
So I think I'll just make sure to store upright, in the house and cool, and when I shake I'll tap it to bring the air to the top.

Another good tip for dropper bottles is to put a droplet of paint into the depression at the top of the cap. Makes finding the colour you want much quicker.