Hey! I was bored and spotted this forum. I can't believe I've never thought to post here before.

So, I'm currently planning my first Dungeons and Dragons campaign. I'm also one of my sister's boyfriend's (Anthony) campaign players. As a gift to him and the others, and my future players, I decide to contribute real life potions! Partially for immersion, mostly because it sounded fun!

My mother and I have spent a good $70+ on bottles (very small and mostly bought from eBay), drinks and liquids to play around with, and other little decorations. I've bought little charms to tie to the bottles, I've bought twine, etc. I've put hours of work into which bottles match which potions, substitutes for potion materials (e.g. one requires a fingernail, so i added a slivered almond), label making, etc. There are a lot of lists in this post, I'm sorry.

I was wondering, has anyone else done this before? Do you have any suggestions or something you think would be a good idea? I've run into one major problem (below) but otherwise I think it could be fun and would like to sell my little potions one day!

Okay, now the reason I need help! The potions I'm making are drinkable. For my campaigns, no one's necessarily worried about nasties in the (artificial) cork and I wash the bottles thoroughly. Unfortunately, probably due to poor manufacturing and the artificial cork, liquid keeps seeping out of the bottle! I've tried plenty of methods for keeping the bottles sealed, including wax (which chipped off), clear nail polish (which didn't work and I'm worried about toxicity), and melting a thin plastic over the corks (which didn't work and set the corks on fire).

If you have anymore ideas or maybe better processes for my ideas, please let me know!

What kind of wax are you using? A little gulf wax rubbed on the inside of the bottles rim should tighten the seal. You shouldn't even have to melt it just get it a little softened and run it along the inside rim of the bottle. Gulf wax is also 100% edible so no toxicity worries.

Go to a scientific supply and get real precision rubber corks? With natural corks, get some superfine sandpaper so you can make it fit exactly a little too big and then force it in. i know that when my great-aunt taught me how to make jelly that there's a trick to melting the paraffin. Once you have your double boiler and make sure the bottle is enough warm that the paraffin doesn't pop off with the sudden cool, you should be able to use a kiddie paint brush to dab it on quickly.