What is that mysterious blue liquid inside of a Magic 8 Ball? I’ve read the page about the disassembly of the 8 Ball, and they mention that the liquid doesn’t seem to be fit for human consumption - but what the heck is it, anyway?
According to the site I linked to above, the liquid tastes “hideous”, numbness to application area, and caused some headaches. So I would assume it’s not just water with blue food dye in it. Is it? Maybe it is food dye - just not diluted with water.
What the heck is that stuff?
If this has been answered already, my apologies, it didn’t turn up in any of my searches - the one that came closest linked to the same page I linked above.
Given that it stains and tastes terrible[sup]1[/sup], and based on its appearance, I’d guess that it’s ink. They don’t require any special properties other than color, as far as I can see, and the toy is a sealed unit which precludes the need for filling it with something non-toxic and/or non-staining. They might use very cheap ink, perhaps watered down a bit. Or maybe in an alcohol base, which would explain a numbing effect. Although, if that were the case, you would think they would have noticed the smell.
[sup]1[/sup] - ever chewed on the end of a ball pen which turned out to be leaky?
I cracked one open once (pretty damn tough to do BTW) to get the floating dodecahedron message unit out. What Yabob said. It looks to be (and stains like) watered down ink.
That’s a good thought. I spent a while digging around in the Magic 8 ball world, and got nothing. Yet there must be an msds, or toxicology report on the stuff somewhere. The liquid isn’t so special that it’d reasonably be hidden away as a trade secret.
Now, correct me if I’m incorrect. Inform me if I’m misinformed. But, I believe it’s an icosahedron. A dodecahedron has twelve equal pentagon faces. An icosahedron has twenty equal triangle faces.
Having also taken one apart, I say it’s either a dilute nontoxic ink, or the blood of Smurfs.
I can’t find a media contact e-mail, but calling those numbers should be able to get it. I’m fairly certain that they wouldn’t mind at least giving a general description of what the liquid inside is. It’s gotta be non-toxic, as they wouldn’t want lawsuits. And if they were evasive about what is in that liquid, if this was reported on a website this could look suspicious.
However, is this such an important issue one of us wants to track down the real answer? And would this site consider the answer important enough to devote a page to it?
Unless of course the liquid contains a secret tincture of energized ectoplasm, or concentrated orgone fluids which render it uniquely sensitive to ‘electronic voice phenomena’ (evp) or some such nonsense.
