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I had the great fortune to spend an afternoon with Louis Pearl , Amazing Bubble Man, who, besides putting on a great show, has a lot to say about bubbles. He mentioned that he often uses a mixture of homemade bubble juice and Mr. Bubbles. I asked him what characteristics Mr. Bubbles brings to the mix that can't be brought to the mix adjusting its primary constituents (detergent, water, and polymer). It is something that I have wondered about. When I ask some people, they tell me that it makes the juice more self-healing which puzzles me because if anything I am often trying to make my juice less self-healing. Others have mentioned characteristics which I (perhaps mistakenly) think of as properties that can be altered by changing the balance of the ingredients.

Louis, however, had an answer that I had not heard before: "it makes the homemade juice ghost-free". Ghost being the word we both use for the "crud" that is left behind when bubbles made from most homebrew solutions pop. "Here," he said with a warm grin, "take some Mr. Bubbles home with you and add it to your mix and let me know what happens."

So, this morning, I went outside with a trusty high-capacity 32-inch top-string tri-string and a quart (4 eight-ounce cups) of PHC 1.3 -- a very very viscous (but dilute) bubble juice that has lots of PEO, HPMC and CMC. Its bubbles create pretty spectacular ghosts (watch the video ) when they pop. The temperature was about 60F with 65% humidity.

I made a few bubbles to make sure the juice was working well. It was.

I added one-half cup of Mr. Bubbles. I didn't notice any change in the five or six bubbles that I made.

I added another half cup and made five or six bubbles. There were still ghosts, but it seemed that they were less prominent than usual. The bubbles made a quiet "whoosh" when they popped -- which they hadn't before. That "whoosh" is something that I associate with "tight" bubble juice (like Mr. Bubbles or the Gazillion that comes in the Green bottle). It was quiet but noticeable.

I added another half cup and made five or six bubbles. Now, the "whoosh" was prominent, and the bubbles popped in an explosion of misty droplets.

I didn't have a chance to explore more or get a chance to see what characteristics (such as longevity, self-healingness, durability, or size potential) were affected. I made a few bubbles with a 100-inch top-string. But there was a bit too much wind. So, that part of the session was inconclusive.

This leaves a couple of immediate issues that I want to explore:

  1. If using a juice (such as eGoo) that has less stuff in it, will it require less Mr. Bubbles to kill the ghosts than it did to kill the ones in PHC 1.3 (which is very polymer heavy did)?
  2. Can this effect be achieved by using some combination of Propylene Glycol, HEC and glycerine? When I did some explorations (sketchy ones) of Propylene Glycol in an HEC-based mix, my impression was that it resulted in the loud bubble-popping familiar from Gazillion and Mr. Bubbles. I don't know if the effect was just the PG or an interaction between PG and the HEC in the mix that I was using.
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