Homemade Bubble Recipes Put To The Test

Bubble bubble toil in trouble...

All right I'm no witch and I'm not really casting a spell. Blue has just discovered how much fun bubbles are, both to blow and to chase down and sometimes he tries both at once. This often leads to a lot of spilled bubble solution. And then I have to buy more bubbles solution (or rather my mom just brings him more bubble whenever she visits).

I don't mind buying bubbles (they are relatively cheap), but I wanted to know if it was something you could make at home (and save yourself a trip to the store).

So I turned to my good ole' Pinterest to see what was needed. And to my surprise there are a couple different variety of homemade bubble recipes. So I found the top three most popular recipes (all with everyday household supplies!) and decided to put them to the test. 

The Project

Try out homemade bubble recipe to see if they work and which one works best

Experiment #1: Sugar Bubbles

Recipe from: The Artful Parent

I remember trying this one out in May and I liked the results with when I used Dawn. I got a fairly decent amount of bubbles from each blow. (But I didn't take any pictures, so does it really count?) 

Anyway I tried making bubbles again this time using Ajax dish soap. Once I mixed all the ingredients together it ended up looking like pale ale. 

It worked all right with Ajax. At first I was only able to get a couple of bubbles of the wand each time I blew, but after I let it sit for a while and would swirl the wand through the solution I was able to get about four or fives bubbles at a time. (Which is the perfect amount for Blue to track down and pop at one time)

Experiment #2: Cornstarch and Baking Powder Bubbles

recipe from The Krazy Coupon Lady

After the success of the sugar bubble recipe I was excited to try more to see if one would work better. This one led to interesting results. Once I mixed all the ingredients together I ended up with this solution below, that kind of looks like milk.

Looks aside (I'm still not sure if that's what its supposed to look like), I had a hard time making bubbles with this recipe. I was lucky if I could even get one bubble off. And the worst part is once I left it alone it started to separate.

Yup that's all the cornstarch at the bottom. And I've tried mixing it back in, but it just keeps settling at the bottom. I'm not sure if its because I mixed the baking powder and water first and then added the rest or if this is just normal for the recipe. Either way it didn't work very well.

Experiment #3: Corn Syrup Bubbles

Recipe from Pre-K Pages

After the fail from the cornstarch and baking powder recipe above, I was almost tempted to just give up and call the sugar bubbles the winner, but this is the corn syrup bubbles is the most popular recipe found on Pinterest (or it is whenever I look for recipes). So I pressed on.

Once I mixed all the ingredients together, it ended up looking a lot like apple juice.

(And no I didn't plan on copying the measuring cup picture above, I ran out of containers and it just sort of work out that way). And out of the three I tried, this is the one that feels the most like store bought bubble syrup.

I was actually a little surprised by this one. Since it felt the most like store bought bubbles and is quite popular on Pinterest, I thought it would work as well, but while it did work quite well (probably the best of the three), it didn't work as well as the store bought bubbles. (I believe this is why they say expectations ruin everything).

Conclusion

I set out to see which homemade Bubble recipe is the best. And in the end I'm still not sure any of them work that well. Whenever I blow bubbles with the store bought bubble syrup I can't count the amount of bubbles that come off the wand. The most I was able to blow from the homemade bubble syrup was about 6 from the corn syrup recipe.

I think I might retry this experiment again sometime in the future and switch out my Ajax dish soap for Dawn dish soap. I think I might get better results if I use a better dish soap.

Until then we have lots of bubbles to blow and even more to pop!