Is there any substance which burns in normal air with a visible flame at a temperature low enough for me to comfortably put my hand in? I think that would make a neat parlour trick, provided the substance in question (and whatever it oxidizes into) is safe to handle and isn’t poisonous.
Any thing I could locate in the way of magic supplies/trick are also listed or carry warnings about them being inherently unsafe.
If there is something safe to use perhaps someone else can furnish that information
I don’t think so. For the flame to be visible, carbon, or some other material, has to be heated to incandescence. That requires a lot of heat.
That special gel that stuntmen use? Or magic shops. I think these gels work because the flame feeds of them, so you have to extinguish the flames when it’s used up, otherwise your skin starts burning.
But there’s always a risk until you’ve read the instructions, applied the safety protocols, and practised.
What exactly is “flame”? It’s just gasses that are hot enough to incandese. If they aren’t hot enough to incandese you won’t see a flame, just a rapid chemical reaction. But most things heated to incandesence are also hot enough to cause an exothermic chemical reaction in the proteins that make up your hands.
What’s going on with a fireflies? Crunching Pep-O-Mint Life Savers? Perhaps there’s something out there that’s sufficiently “flamelike” to still make a neat parlor trick, without actually being a burning substance.
A buddy of mine used to spray lots of Lysol on his hand, and then light it on fire. It was a startling effect, and he made it look easy. Obviously, he had to put out the flame before too long … but IIRC, it lasted for a surpisingly long time (maybe 15 seconds or so?).
My friends and I used to do a similar thing with aerosol deodorant. Spray a load of it into your palm and then light it with a Zippo. It only looks impressive if done in the dark, as it burns with a blue flame. As I recall, it didn’t hurt. In the same way, firelighters burn pretty cool - you can easily hold a firelighter in your palm while it’s alight, if you toss it around a bit (and drop it before it starts charring up too much). Don’t try this at home, of course :dubious:
Actually, now I remember the true stupidity of myself as a youth, I recall that I earned great admiration one Bonfire Night with an extension of this trick - I sprayed a load of Lynx deodorant over my denim jacket, while wearing it, and lit it. It looked really neat, and caused no damage whatsoever to the jacket, but still, :smack:
Many volatile flammable organics can be applied to the skin and lit (NOTE: THAT DOESN’T MAKE IT A GOOD IDEA. Do not try this at home), because the latent heat of evaporation compensates for the heat of the flames, and anyway, because it’s the vapour that’s burning the flames aren’t as close to the skin as they might be. It becomes a serious problem when the fuel source begins to run out, because there’s nothing left to evaporate and provide the cooling effect, and there’s less of a gap between the flame and the skin.
I think probably the nearest thing you’re going to get to a cold flame will be some sort of electroluminescence, using a Van Der Graaf generator and… I dunno… some sort of gas or vapour that can be excited to luminescence at normal pressures. you’d have to take huge precaution that you are not grounded though.
The guys that invent magic tricks have been playing with fire for ages and anything even vaguely safe is available from magic stores.
There are various substances that can be applied to skin or clothing to ‘insulate’ it from heat, thereby allowing it to be held into a flame longer than normal. These have been used by stage magicians for many years. The British Masklyne family had one such ‘secret’ formula they had been using; during WWII they helped develop a version of it that could be used on pilot uniforms to give them more time to get out of burning planes.
If your question is inspired by seeing this done as an illusion, the trick may not be in a “cooler flame”, but in a more insulated skin.
A trick that I have used is to mix one part isopropyl alcohol (rubbing alcohol) to one part water. Soak a piece of paper in the mixture (I’ve used a$20 bill) and light it. You get a beautiful flame but the paper will not burn. I have not tried this on skin.