The last few days, I have had my first chances to make bubbles in quite a long time, and the conditions have been excellent: cool temperatures (lows 60s F), decent humidity (60 to 80%) with the sort of overcast days that benefit bubble colors. My next blog post will feature some videos and pictures. All in all, I have made some of the best bubbles that I have ever made over the last few days.
Today, something very strange happened. Two bubble solutions from reliable recipes were total busts. I have run into situations where one can't make a bubble to save one's life outdoors with reliable solutions. Today was the first time that I couldn't even make a bubble with a small wand indoors with a reliable recipe and fresh batches of polymers.
It started with a bottle of concentrate that I mixed up last night. This morning, I went to dilute it and saw that it had turned milky overnight. I figured that was a bad sign. For the polymer, it contained mostly BLM from a batch that I have been using successully all week. It also contained citric acid and baking soda -- and the thought occurred to me that I might have run into the problem that Romi referred to on SBF with the shelf-life of baking soda/citric acid containing solutions (although I have never had concentrate go bad overnight). So, I made a fresh batch (using my generally very reliable standard recipe) and I couldn't get a single bubble from a small wand. Normally it is easy to get 10 to 20 bubbles or more per dip. And this time, I used fresh polymers. No go.
Since I used different mixing vessels and different batches of polymers (and even detergent), the only thing that I can think of is that something strange was going on with our water.
I just re-constituted some of that concentrate with distilled water and it seems to be bubbling as I would expect. I have measured the pH, and it is what I would expect (around 9.0). So, it does seem like something in our water supply today is responsible. In a few days, I will try again and mix one batch with all distilled and one with tap.
Strange day.