Has anyone here made their own super-bubbles? The kind that adds things like glycerine, sugars or cornstarch to the recipe?
Do they make a noticeable difference over the store-bought large-jug-o-bubbles? We’d be using these primarily at music festivals and the like where they’d float over all sorts of people–any issues with staining or other effects that one wouldn’t expect from bubbles?
The money/time difference seems to be pretty minimal (what, ten bucks and twenty minutes?), but even at that minimal level I’d want there to be a noticeable improvement.
Make the ones that don’t pop so easy! I haven’t done it but I saw it demonstrated on TV this week. That would be great at an event. And I hope nobody goes to a music festival in their Sunday best, expecting to come home unsoiled and stain free.
Heh, it’s a music festival, but I’d be right pissed if I came home with weird spots on my favourite t-shirt. Plus, people are there for a few days so while a bit of dirt and grime are expected (or lots of mud, depending on the weather), I’d hate to add a little stickiness or other mess to people’s day. We also get a lot of kids around our cart (always have a ton of glowsticks, balloons and assorted geegaws on hand for the Devilling and his friends), so it would be kind of rude to send them back to their folks with spots of colour or incorrigibly sticky hands.
I used to work in science museums, so I know a thing or two about bubbles.
Glycerine is sooooo 10 years ago. Nowadays for extra strong, extra large bubbles, the preferred additive is… powdered veterinary lubricant. Not joking.
J-lube, as it’s known, is readily bought online, mixes easily into Dawn (Pro or Pots and Pans for best results, or the new contender is 7th Generation Natural, which I haven’t tried - don’t bother with most other brands) and sometimes has a little baking soda mixed in too, to adjust pH…
Here. This is everything you need to know about big bubbles.
Looking through the “Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought” section is pretty funny.
I’m not necessarily looking for giant bubbles per se. Great if they happen, but I’m turning a lot of bubble-duty over to the 4 year old, so it’s mostly standard wands and bubblers, not the loops or larger hoops I see in most pictures. It’s really my hope that in the somewhat windy, slightly pell-mell and chaotic fest environment, or with the mildly technique- and patience-challenged tyke-set, that the larger-bubble formulas will make more consistent (and granted, larger) bubbles. True?
True. Another factor will be humidity; a dry day will make even your j-lubed bubbles pop quickly. I do suggest you make/buy an extender loop giant bubble wand, as even if your little ones can’t manage it, someone will always want to attempt a big mamma.