When I first started bubbling, I was intrigued by the huge range of dilutions recommended in bubble recipes and couldn't find any explanation to account for it -- other than many recipes may have relied on a particular era's soap (recipes that work great for Original Dawn are still floating around even though they don't really work well with any of the modern Dawns -- not even Non-Ultra) or perhaps a particular way of making bubbles (some wands are MUCH more forgiving than others). Even with big bubble solutions for tri-string wands there is a huge range.
I averaged out the recommendations in the various recipes that I found and 8 to 1 was the result. So, I started my big bubbling with 8 to 1 (water to detergent) solutions to which varying amounts of BLM (see Recipes) was added. I also tried 12 to 1 dilutions since that was a frequently recurring number. At the time, I got my best results with 8 to 1 dilutions. Best, at that time, meant easiest solution in as far as closing big bubbles. As time has gone by I have gravitated towards 11 to 1 solutions (although I want to explore much more dilute solutions in light of some experiments that will be blogged at another time).
Today, I did some side-by-side bubbling with 8 to 1 and 11 to 1 solutions and did not find that the 8 to 1 was easier to work with. The 11 to 1 bubbles may have been somewhat more colorful but I would need to video to really compare.
I need to run some longevity tests but outdoors the 11 to 1 bubbles may have lasted somewhat longer -- but that may also have been related to shifting condtions.
... to be continued