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An experiment is taking over social media as Nigerians are testing whether their palm oil has been adulterated with dye.
Chinonso Egemba, a health influencer and medical doctor known as Aproko Doctor, started this trend with a demonstration video on his Instagram page. Even though he posted this video as far back as December 2025, many people are now trying it out and posting their own results as videos on TikTok and Instagram.
The test is simple. Get a transparent glass cup, pour in palm oil, then add water. Some do it the other way round: water first, then oil. The verdict, according to the trend, comes down to what happens next. If the water gets stained, the oil has been mixed with dye. If both separate, with the water settling at the bottom and the oil floating on top, the oil is considered pure.
But does this test actually prove that the oil has been adulterated? This explainer details what you should know.
Why this trend started
Palm oil adulteration is not a new problem in Nigeria. The challenge is that the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) has struggled to contain its circulation across food markets around the country.
This practice has been linked to Nigeria’s broader public health challenges. Some health practitioners have even raised concerns that these dyes can cause cancer.
An old video of someone mixing a large quantity of dye into palm oil resurfaced the issue on social media. And because Nigerians were looking for a way to check their own oil at home, they started adopting Aproko Doctor’s water-and-oil test.
The logic behind the test
According to Aproko Doctor and other health commentators who have explained the test online, the reasoning comes down to “basic chemistry.” Genuine palm oil, they say, gets its natural red-orange colour from carotenoids. These pigments occur naturally in the oil and are not water-soluble.
Oil and water are also generally known not to mix because of their different chemical properties. So, the expectation is that they separate cleanly when mixed, with oil floating above the water.
Going by this explanation, if a trader has added dye to the palm oil, and that dye is water-soluble, it will bleed into the water when mixed. The stain that occurs is what proponents of the test point to as evidence of adulteration.
Can water accurately test for dye in palm oil?
According to the National Institutes of Health, palm oil’s natural pigments, particularly carotenoids, are fat-soluble. They do not readily dissolve in water. Some dyes, however, may also be oil-soluble, meaning they can remain in the oil rather than leaching into the water. Conversely, water-soluble coloured substances or other contaminants could produce colour in the water without proving that the palm oil was dyed.
Racheal Hungbeme, a food scientist based in Nigeria, said the viral test is not a reliable method to verify palm oil adulteration.
“Gas chromatography is an effective way to check the authenticity of oil,” she noted.
Gas chromatography is a laboratory technique used to separate and identify substances in a sample. It works by vaporising the sample and passing it through a gas, which separates its different components for analysis.
The problem with the viral test, she noted, is that colour migration into water depends on the chemical properties of the colouring substance, not simply on whether the palm oil is naturally coloured or artificially dyed.
Chika Okegbe, another food safety expert, explained to DUBAWA that a water test cannot determine whether palm oil has been dyed.
She said palm oil can be adulterated with different substances, including Sudan dyes. Sudan dyes are lipophilic, meaning they are oil-loving and dissolve in oil rather than water.
“So if your palm oil contains Sudan IV, adding water will not pull the dye out of the oil. It can give a false negative,” she noted.
What can reliably detect synthetic dyes?
Detecting synthetic dyes in palm oil requires laboratory analysis rather than a simple visual test.
Scientific studies have used techniques such as thin-layer chromatography (TLC), high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), liquid chromatography coupled with diode-array detection (LC-DAD), and mass spectrometry to identify Sudan dyes and other synthetic colourants in edible oils.
These methods separate the substances in a sample and identify the chemical compounds based on their properties.
For example, a 2024 review of reported Sudan-dye adulteration in palm oil used HPLC and other chromatographic techniques to detect the dyes. Researchers have also investigated newer methods such as near-infrared spectroscopy and surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy as faster screening approaches.
This is significantly different from the viral water test, which relies only on whether visible colour appears to move from the oil into the water.
Conclusion
The viral palm oil-and-water test may appear simple, but it cannot reliably tell consumers whether their oil contains added dye. The transfer of colour into the water depends on the chemical properties of the substance involved and does not provide enough evidence to confirm or rule out adulteration.