The “stabilizer baths” found in many modern C-41 color developing kits, including our own liquid kit, contain a surfactant (to prevent water from drying on the film and leaving spots if the water is hard) and Hexamine or Miconazole (mild anti-fungal agents). Neither of these is necessary for the stabilization of the dyes or hardening emulsion.
Our Cs41 “Color Simplified” Kit is specially formulated without compromise for modern color films, not requiring a stabilizer bath. But it’s not a bad idea to use a final rinse bath if you have hard water, or if film will be stored in a humid environment in order to prevent organisms from growing in your emulsion, since processed color film does not contain silver (naturally anti-microbial).
If you are shooting modern color negative film, a “stabilizer bath” is not necessary. Up until the mid 90’s, the final rinse bath in the C-41 process was called a “stabilizer bath,” since it contained Formaldehyde or Formalin. Modern color film emulsions were designed so that one-hour photo labs wouldn’t need haz-mat training for formaldehyde and have built-in dye stabilizers and hardeners that are released through our simplified 2-bath process.
