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Earlier this summer I did some tests to compare Surgilube and KY-Jelly Type lubes as additives. Unfortunately, time prevented me from completing the study. So, one shouldn't draw too many conclusions from this data. I was comparing the performance of 6:1 (water:detergent) solutions with either Surgilube or a KY-Jelly type lube (in this set of tests CVS brand was used--past tests have shown the major brands of generic KY-Jelly seem to more-or-less identical with variations in performance not being detectable). The Small Wand test not only indicates how a solution will perform (with respect to bubbling ease) with small rigid loop type wands but also tends to indicate the relative ease with which bubbles can be closed off with larger tri-string wands (at least those with up to 48-inch top strings)


I only performed the longevity and small wand tests as time prevented me from performing the size potential test (which tests 'stretchiness'). As 'stretchiness' is key to create giant bubbles, these tests need to be re-done.


Methodology: water:detergent solutions were made with Redwood City tap water (pH is about 9.1 and the water is only slightly hard). The dilution was 6 parts water to 1 part detergent (by weight). The batches were divided into a control batch with no additive and then samples were mixed up with lube added. Lube was added so that there were solutions with 25%, 50% and 75% lube by weight compared to detergent.


Commentary: These percentages were chosen because other tests indicated that when there less than 1/4 as much lube as detergent that the improvement in small wand performance is negligible. Other tests indicated that performance (as measured by the small wand test) stopped improving dramatically once the amount of lube was above about 80% of the detergent. (Those same tests also indicated that if one diluted the solution to 12 parts water per 1 part detergent that adding more lube had no impact once there was the same amount of lube as there was detergent.) Given the price of these lube products, using more than 75% lube (compared to detergent doesn't seem like a cost-effective path to take. In practice, PEO-based products (such as PolyOx or J-Lube) are much more effective potentiators. However, they are harder to come by. So it seems worthwhile to measure the effectiveness of these products. And it also is helpful in understanding how these products influence water:detergent mixes.


20100805ultra surg ky chart

Chart of results (averaged from many trials)

 


Preliminary Conclusions: KY-Type jelly was about 20 to 30% more effective (as measured by the small wand test) in increasing bubbling ease when it was used at a rate of 50% of the detergent or more. This makes KY-type jelly effective for beginner's that want to brew up some solution for using with small and medium wands (and also tri-string wands with top-strings up to about 24 inches). These solutions will be nowhere near as productive as solutions that also include J-lube. But either Surgilube or KY-Jelly type lubes can create bubble juice that is as-good or better than non-premium-bubble juice (i.e. it is a suitable replacement for Super Miracle Bubbles or worse). Large amounts of lube, yield something that approaches the performance of Gazillion. These solutions also are self-healing enough to permit bubbles-in-bubbles.


At 25%, Surgilube had a slight edge but that edge was within the tests margin of error. With no lube, these solutions averaged a hair over 1 bubble per wand dip. With the lube at 25% (with respect to detergent), the bubbles per dip were about 5. At 50%, the bubbles-per-dip of the KY-mix was about 17 (the Surgilube mix was about 13). At 75%, the KY-type mix registered about 24 bubbles-per-dip (with Surgilube the number was about 18). The water:ultra:ky mix performed better than water:dawn manual pot&pan:ky-type mix (which performed about the same as water:ultra:surgilube). Due to a problem in test setup, no data was collected for water:dawn manual pot&pan plus surgilube. Longevity tests were also conducted. KY-Type jelly had some impact on the longevity for the better while Surgilube had next to no impact. This may be due to the KY-type lubes containing glycerine. The impact of the KY was small enough that it should not really be considered a major benefit as a small amount of gycerine added to the Surgilube mixes would more than make up the difference.


Since the size potential tests were not performed, no conclusion can be reached about whether either lube is of greater benefit with regards to size potential.


Remaining questions: These tests should be performed again as not enough trials were performed for these tests to be definitive and the size potential test needs to be performed as that test is much more important where large bubbles are concerned. These tests also need to be performed with more detergents as it is quite possible that some detergents may 'prefer' one lube over the other. The tests should be done with at least: Dawn Ultra, Dawn Non-Ultra, Joy Ultra, Dawn Manual Pot & Pan. Also, the tests should be performed on water:detergent:peo mixes.

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