How To Test LSD
How to Test LSD for Authenticity and Safety (2026 guide)
Testing a tab? Start here
What's sold as acid is sometimes an NBOMe, a DOx compound, a different lysergamide, or nothing at all. Reagents can tell you a tab is unexpected. They can't tell you it's fine.
Reagent testing gives you information you wouldn't otherwise have. A color that doesn't belong tells you something is wrong, and that's genuinely useful. But no reagent can make a sample safe, none of them confirm a substance on its own, and on blotter there's so little material that weak or absent reactions are normal. Read this page for what the tests rule out, not for permission to dose.
What color should LSD turn?
Ehrlich is the primary test for a lysergamide on blotter. Hofmann is the follow-up that separates lysergamides from other indoles. Neither one names the specific molecule, and neither one clears a tab.
| Reagent | Color Reaction | When to read | What it means | What it does not rule out |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ehrlich | Purple | Up to 5 minutes. Analogs and prodrugs can take an hour or more | Consistent with a lysergamide — an indole ring is present | Which lysergamide. LSD, 1P-LSD, 1cP-LSD, 1V-LSD, 1D-LSD, ALD-52, AL-LAD, ETH-LAD and LSZ all give the same purple |
| Ehrlich | Purple | Up to 5 minutes | Also the expected result for psilocybin, psilocin, 4-AcO-DMT, DMT, melatonin, 5-HTP and tryptophan | A purple on Ehrlich is not specific to LSD or even to a lysergamide |
| Ehrlich | No reaction | After a full 5 minutes, longer if a prodrug is possible | No indole detected in the portion you tested. This is not a pass — it's an unresolved result | NBOMes, DOx compounds and other phenethylamines are not indoles and give nothing here. So does a blank tab, and so does a real tab with too little material or degraded reagent |
| Hofmann | Deep blue, sometimes purple-tinged | Up to 5 minutes; longer on gel | Consistent with a lysergamide. Deep blue is the canonical result — do not discard a tab for being blue rather than purple | Which lysergamide, and anything present alongside it |
| Hofmann | Yellow to yellow-green | Up to 5 minutes | Points to a non-lysergamide indole such as psilocybin or DMT — not LSD | Hue judgements are unreliable under warm or colored light. Approximate swatch |
| Hofmann | Color change from the medium itself | Any time | Hofmann reacts with sugar. A sugar cube, mint or gummy can produce a color with no LSD present at all | Sugar-based and edible media are unsuitable for this test. See the false-positive box below |
| Marquis | Nothing, or a faint orange | Within 60 seconds | This is what 25I-NBOMe does. A weak or absent Marquis reaction does not exclude an NBOMe | Everything. Treat Marquis as a red-flag reagent only |
| Mecke | Weak brown at most | Within 60 seconds | Also what 25I-NBOMe does. Again, not an exclusion | 25C-NBOMe and other NBOMes, DOx compounds |
| Marquis on paper | Slow browning or charring | Over minutes | Marquis contains concentrated sulfuric acid and will darken or char blotter paper whatever is on it. That's an artifact, not a reaction | Don't read paper damage as a positive or a negative |
Swatches are approximate on-screen hues for orientation only. Match your result against the printed booklet or the BunkLeaks app in bright neutral daylight, not against a monitor.
Ehrlich reagent color guide — dozens of reference reactions. Also included as the printed booklet in the Ehrlich Spot Test Kit and the LSD Spot Kit Package.
Hofmann reagent color guide. Hofmann is the reagent that separates lysergamides from other indoles — lysergamides go deep blue, other indoles go yellow to green.
- Cut roughly a tenth of a tab — a small corner is enough.
- Run a blank first. Test an unprinted, undyed corner of the same sheet, or a piece of plain white paper, with one drop of reagent. If the blank produces color, the paper or ink is reacting and your real result can't be trusted.
- Put the sample piece in a test tube. Add 1–2 drops of Ehrlich.
- Watch for up to 5 minutes. Purple is consistent with a lysergamide.
- Repeat on a fresh piece with Hofmann. Deep blue, sometimes purple-tinged, is consistent with a lysergamide.
- If nothing has happened and a prodrug is plausible, keep watching. 1cP-LSD, 1V-LSD and 1D-LSD can take an hour or more to produce color.
Never run two different reagents on the same piece of sample.
- They cannot tell lysergamides apart. Ehrlich detects the indole ring, and every lysergamide is an indole. LSD, 1P-LSD, 1cP-LSD, 1V-LSD, 1D-LSD, ALD-52, AL-LAD, ETH-LAD and LSZ all give the same purple. This matters for dosing: ETH-LAD in particular is meaningfully more potent by weight than LSD, so "it went purple" tells you nothing about how much to take.
- They do not cover 25I-NBOMe or 25C-NBOMe. These are phenethylamines, not indoles, so they give no Ehrlich reaction. The Ehrlich plus Hofmann package cannot be described as detecting NBOMes generally. Hofmann is reported to respond to some members of the class, including 25B-NBOMe and 25iP-NBOMe, and to DOM — check the booklet for those specific reactions rather than assuming a hue.
- A non-reaction is never a pass. No color means either there's no indole present, or there's too little material, or your reagent has degraded. All three look identical.
- Blotter carries very little active material — roughly 500 to 1500 micrograms of everything, active and inactive combined. Faint, slow and partial reactions are the norm, not a sign of something wrong.
NBOMes (25I-NBOMe, 25C-NBOMe, 25B-NBOMe and others) are sold as acid because they're cheap, they fit on blotter, and they look identical. They can cause seizures, cardiovascular collapse and death at doses that overlap with what people take as a tab.
Older versions of this page told you a vivid Marquis, Mecke or Liebermann color meant NBOMe, and that no vivid color meant you were clear. That was wrong and we've removed it. 25I-NBOMe gives no reaction or a faint orange with Marquis and only a weak brown with Mecke. A blotter square doesn't hold enough of anything to produce a vivid reaction in the first place. Quiet reagents do not mean there's no NBOMe.
What reagents can do here is flag the positive case: a purple Ehrlich and a deep blue Hofmann are consistent with a lysergamide, which an NBOMe is not. Nothing on this page can exclude one. If the question actually matters to you, send it for lab analysis.
- Colored gel and printed blotter. Dye leaches out of blue, purple and heavily printed media straight into the reagent. It can mimic the color you're hoping for, or drown out the one that's actually there. Use an undyed corner where you can, and always run the blank control described above.
- Sugar reacts with Hofmann on its own. A sugar cube gives a color change with no LSD in it whatsoever.
- Sugar cubes, mints, gummies and chocolates are unsuitable for reagent testing. The medium interferes and the active is distributed unevenly through it. If that's the form you have, the honest answer is lab analysis, or the LSD QTest for sugar cubes specifically.
Gel tabs, liquid, and prodrug analogs
Gel tabs are gelatin squares that can hold more per volume than blotter and hold potency longer. They react slowly — allow up to 30 minutes, and read streaking in the expected colors as a reaction. Don't conclude "no reaction" before the full 30 minutes have passed.
- Put a piece of the gel tab in a very small amount of water — a few drops is plenty.
- Add one drop of dilute sodium hydroxide solution to break the gelatin down. One drop. Excess base neutralises both Ehrlich and Hofmann, and you'll get a flat non-reaction from a perfectly real tab.
- Once the gelatin has dissolved, test the resulting liquid as you would blotter.
Sodium hydroxide is caustic. It burns skin and permanently damages eyes. Wear eye protection, work over a surface you don't mind ruining, keep it off your hands, don't inhale over the container, and rinse any splash with plenty of running water. Never add water to concentrated base — add base to water. If you don't want to handle it, skip the extraction and just test the gel directly with a long observation window.
Liquid LSD should be dried before testing, because the solvent skews colors. Drop it onto plain white untreated paper, let it dry fully, then test the dried paper — and test a piece of the same paper untreated first, so you know the paper isn't reacting on its own. Always shake a vial before dosing: LSD settles, and an unshaken vial can deliver many times the intended dose. Solvent also evaporates over time, concentrating what's left.
Most blotter on the market now carries a prodrug rather than LSD itself — 1cP-LSD, 1V-LSD and 1D-LSD in particular, along with 1P-LSD and ALD-52. They convert to LSD in the body and they all give the same purple Ehrlich and blue Hofmann as LSD does, only slower. Two consequences: an hour of patience may be needed before you call a non-reaction, and no reagent result on this page distinguishes them from LSD or from each other.
Cross-reference with more reagents
The LSD Spot Kit Package costs less than buying the two reagents separately and lets you run the Ehrlich and Hofmann checks side by side.
- Ehrlich reagent — 1 bottle, 50–100 uses
- The primary test for a lysergamide. Purple is consistent with an indole; it does not name the molecule.
- Hofmann reagent — 1 bottle, 50–100 uses
- Separates lysergamides (deep blue) from other indoles (yellow to green). Reacts with sugar, so not for sugar-based media.
- 2 test tubes
- One per reagent. Don't share a sample between reagents.
- 2 instructional booklets, 20+ pages each
- Dozens of printed reference reactions — the color source to compare against.
- 2 durable plastic jars
- They double as stash jars.
Running a second reagent is worth doing not because it confirms the first, but because it can surface something the first one missed.
For the most detail available short of a laboratory, our Skylab Separation Kits separate a mixture into its components and give a rough sense of how much of each is present. The Juno Separation Package includes Ehrlich and Hofmann; the Curiosity (Pro Level) Separation Package includes every reagent we carry.
What gets sold as LSD instead
| What it might be | How far you can get at home |
|---|---|
| 25I-NBOMe, 25C-NBOMe | Not covered by this kit. No Ehrlich reaction; weak or absent Marquis and Mecke. A purple Ehrlich plus deep blue Hofmann argues against an NBOMe, but nothing here excludes one. Lab analysis if it matters |
| 25B-NBOMe, 25iP-NBOMe | Hofmann is reported to respond to these — compare against the booklet rather than assuming a color |
| DOx compounds (DOM, DOB, DOC) | No Ehrlich reaction. Hofmann is reported to respond to DOM. Active at a few milligrams, so a substitution here is a dosing hazard |
| Lysergamide analogs (1P-LSD, 1cP-LSD, 1V-LSD, 1D-LSD, ALD-52, AL-LAD, ETH-LAD, LSZ) | Indistinguishable from LSD by reagent — same purple, same blue, sometimes much slower. Lab analysis is the only way to name which one |
| A blank tab with nothing on it | Looks exactly like a failed test. This is the main reason a non-reaction is unresolved rather than negative |
| Fentanyl or nitazenes | Implausible on blotter — a square can't hold a meaningful dose. Reagent colors will not show either one |
| Blotter dye and ink | Run a blank control. Dye is a source of both false positives and masked reactions |
Testing potency (micrograms)
The LSD QTest Kit is a single-use quantitative test that estimates how many micrograms of LSD-25 are present in blotter, liquid or sugar cube form. Instructions are on the QTest basics page.
The QTest measures concentration. It does not identify your substance and it does not screen for adulterants. Run spot kits first.
Two hard limits: it does not work on gel tabs, and it does not react to 1P-LSD, 1cP-LSD, ALD-52 or ETH-LAD. Since prodrug blotter is now common, a low or zero QTest reading on a real, active tab is an expected outcome rather than evidence of a fake.
Which test do I need?
Ehrlich alone. Purple within about 5 minutes, longer for prodrugs.
Shop EhrlichBoth reagents. Hofmann's deep blue separates lysergamides from psilocybin and DMT.
Shop the packageStep by step
- Run a blank. Plain paper, or an unprinted corner of the same sheet, with one drop of reagent. Establish that the medium isn't reacting.
- Run Ehrlich on about a tenth of a tab. Give it 5 minutes; give a suspected prodrug an hour.
- Run Hofmann on a fresh piece. Deep blue, sometimes purple-tinged, is consistent with a lysergamide.
- Interpret conservatively. Purple then deep blue is the expected pattern. No reaction is unresolved, not negative.
- Optional QTest for micrograms, only after the spot kits.
- Record it. Photograph your results and consider reporting them to BunkLeaks so others benefit.
- Reading too early. There is no one-minute answer here — Ehrlich commonly takes up to 5 minutes, gel up to 30, prodrugs an hour or more.
- Colored gel or heavily printed blotter with no blank control.
- Sugar cubes, mints, gummies and chocolate. The medium reacts or interferes.
- Too little sample. A tenth of a tab is the minimum worth trying; a speck won't do it.
- Dim or colored lighting. Bright neutral daylight, and compare against the printed booklet.
- Old reagent. Replace annually, store cool and dark, and don't trust a non-reaction from a bottle you can't date.
- Reusing a sample between reagents, or using the same tube for both.
- Reading Marquis-blackened paper as a reaction. That's sulfuric acid attacking cellulose.
Your result wasn't what you expected
- Report it. Log the sample in BunkLeaks — an unexpected tab in your area is a warning for everyone else in it.
- Find out what it actually is. Our lab testing service is the only route that names the molecule. Gel tabs need the Full Identification Analysis or the Complete Analysis, not the basic options.
- Rule out the test itself. Fresh reagent, a blank control, a bigger piece, bright daylight, and a much longer observation window before you conclude anything. A slow prodrug and a blank tab look the same at two minutes.
- If an opioid is plausible — a powder, a pressed pill, or anything that isn't paper or gel — have naloxone in the room, don't use alone, and start far below your usual amount. Opioid contamination is unlikely on blotter but it is not impossible in other forms sold as acid.
- Vivid, fast color on Marquis, Mecke or Liebermann is still a red flag worth acting on. Just don't read the absence of one as reassurance.
Questions
Does Ehrlich tell LSD apart from AL-LAD or ETH-LAD?
No. We used to say it did and that was wrong. Ehrlich reacts with the indole ring, and every lysergamide has one, so they all give the same purple. It also gives that purple with psilocybin, psilocin, DMT, melatonin, 5-HTP and tryptophan. Naming a specific lysergamide requires lab analysis.
My tab gave no reaction at all. Is it fake?
Unknown, which is the honest answer. A non-reaction is consistent with a blank tab, with a prodrug that hasn't developed yet, with too small a sample, and with degraded reagent. Wait longer, retest with more material and fresh reagent, and treat it as unresolved rather than negative in either direction.
Hofmann went deep blue rather than purple. Should I throw it out?
No. Deep blue is the canonical Hofmann result for a lysergamide. Purple-tinged blue is also normal. Our older flowchart implied blue was wrong, which risked people discarding genuine positives.
Can I test gel tabs?
Yes, with two caveats. Allow the full 30 minutes and treat streaking in the expected colors as a reaction. And be aware that colored gel leaches dye into the reagent, which can imitate or hide the real result — run a blank piece of the same gel color if you can get one without LSD, or accept that a dyed gel result is weak evidence. The QTest does not work on gel at all.
If it tastes bitter, is it definitely not LSD?
Bitterness is a good reason to stop, not a test. LSD is essentially tasteless at blotter doses, so a distinctly bitter, metallic or numbing taste is a genuine warning sign and spitting it out is the right call. But blotter paper and inks have a faint taste of their own, some NBOMes have been described as having little taste, and taste is subjective. Don't use it as a pass, in either direction.
Do I need fentanyl strips for a tab?
Probably not. A blotter square can't physically hold a meaningful fentanyl dose, and there's no economic reason to put an opioid on a psychedelic tab. If you want the check anyway, FentKits are inexpensive — just note they don't detect nitazenes and they miss some analogs.
Does a good test mean my tab is safe?
No. Reagent results are presumptive, they describe only the piece you tested, and they can't name which lysergamide you have or rule out an NBOMe. Testing lowers your chance of an unpleasant surprise. It doesn't remove risk.
How long do reagents last?
Don't use a kit older than a year, even stored well. Plastic bottles hold 5 ml (50–100 uses), glass 10 ml (100–200 uses). Amber UV-blocking glass kept refrigerated lasts longest. Store everything cool and dark.
Ready to test?
Serious drug checking at home. Orders ship within 24 hours.
Two reagents, two test tubes, two booklets, 50–100 uses each · Discreet packaging
More resources
- Our types of test kits
- QTest purity test kit basics
- Skylab separation kit basics
- All about gel tabs, blotter and liquid LSD
- Exploring 1P-LSD and other analogs — why reagents can't tell them apart
- How to test for nitazenes — why fentanyl strips aren't enough
- Reaction video library — watch colors develop in real time
- Spectrum color guide
- Lab testing service
A sample that has been tested should not be considered safe. There is inherent risk when choosing to consume any substance.
Many factors are involved when conducting a test and examining reactions, and The Bunk Police does not assume responsibility for the interpretation of results. Reactions of individual samples can vary depending on lighting differences and the specific mixtures of substances being tested.
Bunk Police kits are intended for identifying unknown substances for harm reduction purposes only. The Bunk Police does not assume responsibility for the use or misuse of this information. Proceed at your own risk.
