Soap Bubble Wiki

Have you run into bubbles that fade from colorful rainbow bubbles to transparent ghosts?


Ghost Bubbles[]

I have been exploring the characteristics of a bubble juice recipe suggested to me by a member of SBF, the Soap Bubble Fanciers Yahoo Group (RIP). His recipe is a mix of Dawn Pro Manual Pot & Pan (which I call Dawn Pot & Pan or DPP) and Non-Concentrated Classic Dawn (NCCD or NCD) with J-Lube, SurgiLube and glycerine. His recipe works quite well. I haven't been able to test it side-by-side with my current base recipe because weather conditions where I live (SF Bay Peninsula) have been too dry or too windy or both since I mixed up his recipe. But I have been intrigued by how it behaves on a wire hoop. So, I decided that I should start exploring NCD and Dawn Pot & Pan in my experiments since they are so widely regarded as superior to Dawn Ultra. Longevity Test information


While testing, I noticed that in bubbles made from some solutions--at some dilutions--the color drains rapidly from top to bottom unitl the bubbles are transparent. The fades are predictable. The stills below document the behavior.

Watch the video


Glycerine and the color drain[]

When there is no glycerine, these bubbles last on average 10 to 20 seconds and the color fade starts about 5 seconds before the bubble breaks. When a small amount of glycerine is added at the level of 1 gram per ounce of solution (a solid and liquid ounce of this solution are pretty close), the time between when the fade happens and when the bubble pops is extended. One bubble lasted a minute in the transparent stage. If you either add quite a bit more glycerine OR dilute the solution significantly, the bubbles last significantly longer and the fade doesn't happen at all -- the color remains stable until it pops. I will update this entry with dilution and glycerine details when further testing has been completed.


(NOTE: June 25, 2010) As glycerine is added the time from inception to color draining is increased as well as the time between the color drain and the bubble breaking. When there is 20% as much glycerine as water, the color fades to an orange tint rather than to transparent and a gray/white 'lattice' appears throughout the bubble just before it breaks. When there is 36% as much glycerine as water, the color stays stable AND the bubbles last about 12.5 times as long as the original solution )(on average) (which had 1% glycerine) and the longest-lasting bubbles last about 16.5 times as long as the longest lasting bubbles of the base solution!


My preliminary conclusion is that the amount of glycerine that most people add to their solutions is having very little impact on the longevity (at least when the humidity is around 50%). The glycerine increase both the lifetime and the color of the bubble. More testing is needed to see if this is particular to J-Lube containing recipes and to see what impact the glycerine has on other bubble characteristics. It may well be that glycerine affects other aspects of the bubble for better or worse. Also, it remains to be seen to what degree glycerine's effect is tied to particular combinations of ingredients or particular detergents. These are all facets that I plan to study.


Longevity as a function of glycerine in this solution[]

Below is some rough data. Note that no conclusion can be drawn about how generally these observations hold true -- they may be particular to this particular formulation.


Glycerine added is measured in drops (which weigh about .085 grams with the dropper I used). Longevity is in seconds. The 'Indexed' column is the ratio of the weighted average compared to the weighted average of the base solution. The base solution was Brian Lawrence's Non-concentrated Dawn + Dawn Pot & Pan + J-Lube Mix (a mix of J-Lube, Surgilube and water) and Glycerine recipe that is documented here. The base solution has 1 oz glycerine per gallon. 1 tablespoon of solution (1/2 liquid ounce) was used and glycerine added a few drops at a time. The solution has a water to detergent ratio of about 11 to 1. [When you read the recipe it might not look like 11 to 1 because there are 24 ounces of Non-Concentrated Classic Dawn. Mr. Lawrence's testing have led to the conclusion that NCCD is about 1/3 the strength of Non-Ultra Dawn. So 24 ounces of NCCD are a replacement for 8 ounces of Non-Ultra Dawn plus 16 oz. water]


If one looks at a graph of the data, there is some up and down movement with low levels of glycerine. I suspect that this is because with low levels of glycerine, small environmental fluctuations (such as specks of dust, etc) have much more influence than in the glycerine-heavy solutions. These trials were done with relative humidity varying from 46% to 51% and temperature 73 to 76 Fahrenheit.


0622 glycerine duration chart

Graph of duration as a function of drops of added glycerine


Trial
Solution Date Gly Added Approx Wt Gly (gr) Color 1 2 3 4 5 Av. Wt. Avg Max Index Wt Index Max Notes Gly to Water Gly to Det Gly to Non-Gly
622 6/24/2010 11 pm 0 0.113 drains 21 8 18 13 15 15 18 21 1 1 1.00% 3.65% 0.90%
2 0.283 drains 34 21 14 19 10 19.6 24.67 34 1.37 1.62 2.50% 9.13% 2.26%
4 0.340 drains by 10 secs 32 18 20 15 10 19 23.33 32 1.3 1.52 3.01% 10.97% 2.71%
8 0.680 drains about 20 29 43 53 31 13 33.8 42.33 53 2.35 2.52 6.02% 21.94% 5.43%
12 1.020 drains about 24 with lattice at bottom 42 9 24 19 28 24.4 31.33 42 1.74 2 9.03% 32.90% 8.14%
20 1.700 drains by 30 but has luster 60 83 40 46 25 50.8 63 83 3.5 3.95 15.04% 54.84% 13.57%
28 2.380 drains to orange;lattice appears just before breaking 75 104 95 74 158 101.2 119 158 6.61 7.52 21.06% 76.77% 19.00%
48 4.080 A++ and color stable 49 127 346 196 141 171.8 227.67 346 12.65 16.48 36.11% 131.61% 32.57%



Wt. Average is average duration of best 3 of 5 trials

Gly Added is measured in drops (which weigh about 0.085 grams with the dropper used)

Indexed Avg is the ratio of the weighted average compared to the weighted average of the base solution

Index Max is the ratio of the maximum duration to the maximum duration of the base solution

1 tbsp of base solution was used (½ liquid ounce – approx 15 ml which weighed about 12.6 grams)

Some Open Questions[]

(updated 6/26/10) Is the color drain particular to Dawn Pot & Pan or, perhaps, Dawn Pot & Pan plus J-Lube containing solutions? ANSWER: NO! Upon further investigation, the color drain is found in solutions that are just water and dish detergent. It happened in all three detergents tests (Dawn Ultra, Dawn Manual Pot & Pan, and Non-Concentrated Classic Dawn) and I hadn't noticed it in previous tests because those solutions are very short-lived and the color drain happens very quickly just before the bubble breaks.


How does the relative humidity impact things? Would we see the same curve at a higher or lower relative humidity?


Does the glycerine affect other bubbling parameters (such as bubble-friendliness, self-healing qualities or size potential)?


Does the kind of glycerine make a difference? Walmart glycerine was used in these trials. Some people have suggested that vegetable glycerine gives different and, perhaps, superious results.