Bubbles!

Bubble Liquid

Not just soap and water, glycerin creates a moisturising protective layer that slows the evaporation process leading to longer lived bubbles. It's as good as the stuff from the store, I make my own to keep plastic waste down.

Print Recipe Pin Recipe

Ingredients

  

• 1 litre Hot water (1000ml for those looking for ratios)
• 250 ml Washing up liquid/Dish detergent (Dawn in the US, Fairy in the UK seem to be the favourites)

Either (these are in order of my personal preference)

• 60 ml Glycerine double this if you use ultra or concentrated dish detergent

or

• 240 ml light corn syrup double this if you use ultra or concentrated dish detergent – I haven't tried this one yet.

or

• 200 g Sugar double this if you use ultra or concentrated dish detergent – I haven't tried this one yet.

Instructions

 

• Gently mix all ingredients making as few suds as possible.
• Let sit for 24 hours for best bubbly results.

Notes

I’ve put all the measurements as ml so it can be easily scaled to the bubble containers on hand.  

Keyword bubbles

The Waffle:

In an effort to cut back on buying things and creating more plastic waste, when we ran out of bubble liquid, I ran to the internets. We had those long skinny bubble wand kits, so first, I measured our bubble liquid capacity out and then I scaled this recipe, originally from Red Ted Art, down to our containers. This will make over a litre (about a third of a US gallon) of bubble liquid as-is.

Red Ted Art has some how-tos for making different types of giant bubble wands have a peek.

I also found this piece in Ars Technica – Physicists determine the optimal soap recipe for blowing gigantic bubbles it looks fairly manageable for home use – I’m guessing “Dawn Professional Detergent” is probably similar to the concentrated options in the grocery store, or at least, similar enough. This was inspired by a busker making mega oblong bubbles in Spain – we saw the same type of street performance on our trip to Barcelona in Feb 2019.

If you don’t have glycerine on hand or have trouble finding it in time for your bubble emergency, The Artful Parent has a recipe that uses sugar instead – it’ll be the same principal.

This blog entry on Home Science Tools explains the science behind adding glycerin/corn syrup or sugar to your bubble solution. Interesting stuff.