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19th August 2013[]

Today I finally got some time to play with the bubbles! As of now I've been testing only guar-based bubble-juice.

Here's the recipe I'm using:

  1. 6.5 g. of guar gum
  2. 7 g. of baking powder
  3. Slurry these 2 with 90% isopropyl alcohol (about 2 oz) (add just enough to cover the dry ingredients)
  4. Add 8 fluid ounces of Fairy Original detergent to the mix
  5. Stir gently with a spoon until it's blended
  1. Take 1 gallon (128 fl.oz) of hot (nearly boiling) tap water, draw it into a bucket
  2. Add a heaping teaspoon of baking powder to the water and mix it well
  3. Add the mix to the water
  4. Stir gently every 5-10 mins for an hour or two, leave opened over night


This mix produces a green and quite slimy bubblejuice. I can get bubbles with a diameter up to 1.5m (60"), but they are quite shortlived (max 10-15 secs) compared to ones produced by for example Glowby.  The longevity I'm aiming at is something like seen in this video .

Espiegel123 said the following to me today: "For tri-strings, I would recommend starting with 30:1 and making a few bubbles and adding a little detergent at a time and observe how it changes things. The color profile of the soap film is different at different dilutions (which is the result of the film thickness changing)." I've been also sent to read the Color and Film Thickness article which I somewhat understood, but I guess I'm still green at this and all this stuff will start to make sense to me somewhat later.

PS: I'm aware, that I should get my hands on Fairy Ultra, but I've been unlucky to get it. Instead, I'm using Fairy Original (green). I've also got my hands on Yes Platinum (blue) which is also a Proctor&Gamble product. Using the same mix but replacing Fairy with Yes produced somewhat worse results so I've turned back to Fairy after just 10 mins.

PPS: Yes Platinum should be the same as Fairy Ultra, but just rebranded. See the following pictures and notice the design/form of the bottle(s):

PPPS: I hate the fact, that I can't get my hands on Dawn :(


20th August 2013[]

After Espiegel123's comments I went out and made the same mix as I usually do (see top of this page), but just in another order (see Recipes Guar EAS under Basic Mix). I'd say that the output is completely the same, but the way I mix is much much easier. You gotta try it for yourself to see what I mean.

Anyhow, I went out in the garden and started with the 40:1 mix (40 parts water to 1 part detergent). The film was quite pink/greenish. I've continued to test the bubblejuice and I found out, that my original ratio of 16-17:1 is simply not enough, I had to add at least 125ml (+4 fl.oz) of detergent to get the bubbles to the same colour scale as it should be with optimal ration using Dawn. My end ratio was about 10-11:1 (using Fairy Original) before I was happy with the colors.

It was quite windy so I didn't had even 1 big bubble living past 10 secs, if 5 at all! I'm not sure if it's the weather conditions or I mixed something up trying the new "Basic Mix" method... I'm quite frustrated to say so.

I'm using the following products for my 72" tri-string (top 1.83 m / 72", bottom 3.66 m / 144")

TOP: 5mm (3/16") WHITE BLEACHED COTTON PIPING CORD (PRE-SHRUNK)

BOTTOM: 3mm (1/8") WHITE BLEACHED COTTON PIPING CORD (PRE-SHRUNK)

... and something tells me, that there's something fishy with the materials I'm using (since I can't get all the mentioned mops sold in US). It's like the bottom string have quite an  issue closing / slipping the film, but I might be wrong. Here's video of me trying my Guar mix (see above) with ratios of 40:1 and up to 10:1. As the ratio goes up, the cotton rig gets more and more greenish. At the end I've tried the same setup with Yes Platinum (blue) but it went from 17:1 and up to 10:1 - the rig is somewhat blue. Please have a look and let me know what you think. I suggest using left and right arrors on the keyboard to jump over to the next bubble-try.

Bubbling_-_20th_Aug_2013_-_Fairy_Original_40_1_to_10_1_Yes_Platinum_testing

Bubbling - 20th Aug 2013 - Fairy Original 40 1 to 10 1 Yes Platinum testing

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