Selecting a good C-41 kit / Separating blix into bleach & fixer.

[dcy]

It also might be that you need the water as well in order for the mixture to have any longevity. Water is, of course, a chemical too.
And packaging, shipping and storing water costs money.

Sometimes I wonder why our society spends so much money storing water and moving it around in trucks when it literally comes out of a numerous pipes around my home. My toilet cleaner is 97.6% water and 2.4% bleach. You'd think the default would be to buy a concentrate and add water.

 

[Spektrum]

There are several reasons for this:
1. Gigantomania – I'm not sure if this is the correct term for this type of purchasing preference among shoppers. People buy with their eyes. Looking at a store shelf, they choose a product that appears to contain more, based on their visual assessment. For example, when looking at other products in a 1-liter package, they will likely choose these products over a highly concentrated product in a tiny bottle, even though it's clearly labeled a concentrate.

2. Purchasing habits – for years, people have been buying this product in larger packaging (for example, a 1-liter bottle). If a manufacturer intends to switch to concentrates, they must consider that potential buyers will perceive the product as a reduced quantity at the same price. They will feel cheated and may abandon the brand altogether. It's too much of a risk for the manufacturer.

3. Safety - A highly concentrated product can be very dangerous. For example, it can be highly corrosive and pose a risk of burns. However, the same product heavily diluted with water poses no such hazard.

 

[gbroadbridge]

For all the people saying it's easy to find kits without blix: I can't find a single 1L kit for sale in the US without blix at the moment. Bellini is out of stock and that seems a semi-permanent thing for them, with only one US supplier I can see. Jobo and Fuji Hunt are both 5L kits and Kodak is more reasonable at 2.5L but still larger than I actually need. Pretty odd.

You have to think that if these manufacturers realized that longevity was the main thing keeping people away from C41 development at home, they'd make a small kit designed for longevity and explain how to make it last 6 months, which is obviously possible, instead of two weeks. Bizarre.

You may want to see if the Japan manufactured Ilfocolor C41 2.5l kit is available.

It specifies 12 weeks life for opened CD with 24 weeks for the rest.

I just mix up the full 2.5l and divide it into two lots of 1.25l. It seems to last forever - at least I've stretched the first 1.25l out to over 9 months.

The datasheet suggests mixing up as much as you need and storing the stock solutions in the orginal bottles until needed.