High Cost Shipping Hydroquinone

[Tom Taylor]

I just mixed a liter of Kodak D-72 for a couple of prints that I want to make and found that I had barely enough hydroquione for 1-liter and was running low on sodium carbonate mono. So I go online to place an order and was shocked to find the shipping cost for shipping 500grams of hydroquione unreasonably high – about $23 from the Formulary and B&S with the cost of hydroquinone being substantially higher at the latter. B&H only sells it in 100mg increments ($8.95) but it can only be picked up at their NY store and you to call in your order to place it. Assuming that no other fees are added except taxes, shipping 500mg from the Formulary is about the same as picking-up 5 100mg bottles from B&H

 

[revdoc]

Try this:

• Open the SDS and search for the postage and/or transportation section. This will list the UN number for hydroquinone.
• Look that number up in appendix A of the USPS postal explorer for the hazard class and packaging rule codes.
• Then look the packaging rules up in appendix C. These will tell you what has to be done to mail hydroquinone in the US.

 

[Disconnekt]

I would say to check out Freestyle photo since they have some in stock, but only the 100gram size (here: https://www.freestylephoto.com/100670-Formulary-Hydroquinone-100-grams), Freestyle does have their own branded version of it for $7.99 but only the 100g size (here: https://www.freestylephoto.com/135019-LegacyPro-Hydroquinone-100-grams). They ship through Fedex starting at $8.99

 

[loccdor]

B&H used to give you free shipping for everything above a certain dollar amount. But now they're excluding chemicals from that. Ah well.

 

[Roger Thoms]

Try ArtCraft Chemical

Hydroquinone

Photograde

artcraftchemicals.com

I put my SF address in and the shipping was about $10.

Roger

 

[retina_restoration]

Shipping anything is expensive these days.
I go to ArtCraft Chemicals for all of my darkroom chemistry.

 

[Robert Ley]

I have also used ArtCraft for my photo chemicals. The only time that I use B&S or PhotoFormulary is when I can't get it at ArtCraft. They ship quickly and have most things in stock and their prices are generally less than you can get it elsewhere. I too went to there site and there shipping was the same for a pound of Sodium Sulfite as for a pound of Hydroquinone about $10.

 

[Tom Taylor]

Yeah, Artcraft charges $10.50:
Quantity1
Hydroquinone
1 pound
1
$23.46
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Cost summary​

Item
Value
Subtotal
$23.46
Shipping
$10.50
Total
USD$33.96

Here's the tab from PF:

Hydroquinone* (Class 6.1)(Ground ups only) / Choose ups ground at checkout (Size: 10-0670 1 lb)

10-0670 1LB

1

$27.95

$27.95​

Sodium Carbonate Monohydrate (Size: 10-1190 1 lb)

10-1190 1 LB

1

$11.95

$11.95​

Subtotal:​

$39.90​

Shipping:​

$23.27​

Tax:​

$0.00​

Grand total:​

$63.17​

Adding the carbonate to the order only added about $1 to the shipping so the next time I need Hydroquinone I'm going to check out Artcraft. D-72 call for 12 grams/liter so with 1-lb I can mix 38 liters and at 1:2 I get 114 L of working solution - enough for about 152 printing sessions or about $0.34 per session. Initially I was going to order 5lbs of the carbonate because it requires 80 grams/liter but the sticker shock caused me to limit it.