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20130806 charmy classic 2 CROP

There were no really huge tubes. This is a pretty nice one with the Classic Recipe

Today's brief test was the classic Mr. Oono recipe compared to a variant that had half the detergent normally used plus baking powder.

The results surprised me. The baking powder mix was a real dud. With guar gum and Charmy, baking powder more than doubled the effective amount of detergent, making a 25:1 mix look like something around 10:1.

The PVA laundry starch and baking powder did not get along. With a dimestore plastic wand, it was hard to blow bubbles. I got 1-4 colorless glossy bubbles per dip. It was as if there was very little detergent. With a tri-string (my standard 32" rayon / twine modular loops), it fared a little better but was much more finicky than the "classic" recipe.

20130806 charmy classic more CROP

Another bubble made with the Classic

It was too windy to be too conclusive. I didn't get any really huge tubes with either mix. With the baking powder mix, I got only a few that approached 10 feet. With the Classic, I got a few 15 to 20 footers but none longer. So, it might be that under better conditions things would have fared better for both mixes, but the small wand results speak to problems with the baking powder mix and it was much harder to close bubbles with the baking powder mix with the tri-string. But the colors were nice.

20130806 bpmix CROP

While the baking powder mix had problems, the colors were nice!

One mystery is that with the small wand, the bubbles are colorless. But, with the tri-string, the film has the same look as the "classic" mix. It is as if the surfactancy (effective amount of surfactant) was boosted as we would have expected but the ability to close bubbles and the longevity was adversely affected. Mysterious.

Adding baking soda did not revive the mix. The pH (7.7) matched the pH ofmthe succesful guar mixes.

QUESTIONS[]

Is the issue that the laundry starch does not like the lowered pH or is it some incompatibility specific to baking powder and the laundry starch? Would bs/ca or citric acid have worked better with the pva laundry starch?

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