You too can make Giant Bubbles! Once you’ve bought in a few bits of kit and some ingredients, there’ll be no stopping you! Both kids & adults love Giant Bubbles, they are awesome. Not only are these bubbles huge, but they float gracefully and the rainbow effect within them is stunning. So beautiful.

First you’ll need to make some bubble wands, then make the bubble juice. Read on to find out how!

How to make wands for Giant Bubbles

We got 2 garden canes which we already had in the garden, but they are sold in any DIY or gardening store, wooden or plastic, it doesn’t matter. 2 x small eyelet screws, about 3 meters of string, small unused key or metal washer, scissors.

We screwed an eyelet screw in the end of each cane.

We then cut off 2 lengths of string, one about 1 metre in length, the other about 2 metres long.

We tied one end of the shorter piece to one eyelet, then the other end of the string to the other eyelet.

We then tied one end of the longer string to one of the eyelets but this time we slipped a small weight onto it, then tied the other end to the other cane’s eyelet. Take a look at the image below, to see how the weight keeps the longer length of string open and away from the shorter piece. We use metal washers or old small keys for our weights.

 

How to make the best bubble juice for Giant Bubbles

We bought a large tub of baking powder, 1 litre of thick concentrated washing up liquid, 500ml bottle of glycerine from a well known auction website (apparently personal lubricant works but lets move swiftly on……)

1) Into a bowl we placed 1700mls of clean (soft is better) tap water.

2) Next we added 2 tablespoons of baking powder & 1 tablespoon of glycerine.

3) Then we very gently stirred in 200mls of concentrated washing up liquid. Other blogs say you need a top quality one, but we have used Asda’s own brand and this worked very well.

4) We made sure the ingredients were blended together and let it sit overnight (the solution is definitely better if left for a few hours).

 

Recipes do vary depending on where you look – why not experiment to find one that you prefer?

 

How to make Giant Bubbles like a pro

To make a good bubble you should have your back towards the breeze. Hold the wands close together and carefully lower the ends of the wand and the string into the bubble juice to soak them. Don’t tangle the strings by stirring or wiggling them around in the bubble solution, just dip them in. Now, lift the wands out of the bubble juice, and walk slowly backwards whilst slowly opening your wands apart. You’ll feel and see the wind catch the bubble and carry it away from you forming a long tube. If you bring the ends of the wand together again, you can snip the bubble off and it should drift up and away. To watch a few clips of the technique, click here.

Its amazing.

Lab notes

Make sure you don’t create any froth whilst mixing up and using your bubble juice. We have used the bubble juice immediately with good results, but leaving the solution to sit for a while is best as it makes them bubbles stronger. Any solution left over can be stored for use another day.

Some recipes suggest adding cornflour, we tried this but couldn’t see a difference. If you wanted to try this ingredient then add 1 tablespoon into your 1700mls solution above. You’ll notice the cornflour settles out fairly quickly, don’t worry about this, just gentle tip the bottle to resuspend the cornflour before use, or mix it up with a spoon.

Don’t be disheartened if bubbles pop, they will, but practise make perfect and the weather does influence how well the bubbles form, so if its too windy, they will burst. Choose a day with a light breeze and when its not raining.

Move the wands up and out slowly and surely, don’t rush this bubble forming part.

Have fun!

Bye for now

Ruth

Chief Scientist!