September 24, 2005

Disaster Preparedness, or why I don't like METHOD SOAP

I think it's always a good thing to try to find new ingredients for bubble brews. The reason? The Mr. Bubbles scare and the oft talked about "old Dawn" Dish detergents.

The Mr. Bubbles brand commercial brand bubble juice has long been the favorite additive of many bubbler's recipes. Tom Noddy has said he uses Mr. Bubbles straight out of the jar for his Bubble Magic Act. In 2004 Tootsietoy/Strombecker, the company that makes Mr. Bubbles, went bankrupt and the shortage of Mr. Bubbles was wide spread and caused great anxiety. Now, it's no longer available. You see, although the company changed hands a few times through the years, the bubble solution was never too difficult to find. As of this writing, the company that bought out Mr. B says production should be cranked up this year and they will be at the NYC Toy Fair in 2006 with it. Let's hope. Many of us, too late, stockpiled Mr. Bubbles when we got the news it was going under. I figure I've got 20 gallons of it in the basement, and those 20 gallons present a quandary. Do I use it up and assume more is on the way? Do I horde it for a rainy day and try to find a substitute? I'll tell you right now Miracle Bubbles was misnamed. Do I save it and sell it to desperate bubblers in the future for an astronomical mark-up? Not my style. Do I use it only for special occasion bubbling? All these questions run through my head.

What the scare has done is force me to be creative. To set up experimentation in bubbling ingredients as a habit. What I ended up with because of this new habit was finding Cricket Hill Powder, an excellent outdoor bubble solution. A lot of juice gets used up outside, so I save my Mr. Bubbles. For indoor work, I still use my recipe with Mr. Bubbles in it. That's okay too. Indoor juice, especially when you're mostly a wand worker goes a long way. I can stretch the Mr. B. while I experiment with my lubes and other ingredients to try to find a sure substitute for it.

As far as the "old Dawn" or the "original formula Dawn", well that was before my time, but it's said among those in the know that the old Dawn was the best detergent ever for bubble mixes. There was a panic when it went out of production and much effort was put into finding out what made it so good. Much effort was even put into trying to figure out what the exact recipe was for it so it could be reproduced. Some offered to buy a full special Proctor and Gamble "run" of the old soap, if they would make it. They wouldn't. Nothing much resulted from these efforts. New detergents were found and recipes were adapted. Life went on. But isn't it always good to be prepared? To do some pre-emergency planning? Well, that's what I do anyway. I post this because it's important to keep records of failed tests as well as successful ones...

As a fan of Dawn Complete, I decided to go on a hunt for a soap of similar
properties and try it out as an experiment. I've often wondered about the METHOD Dish Soap for sale at Target Stores. It has intrigued me for two reasons. 1. It says it features many
of the same qualities I like in Dawn Complete, most importantly skin softening additives.
(The grapefruit scent also smelled better than the Dawn C.) 2. It was expensive relatively, 25 oz for around $3.00. Expensive must equal good right?

So I brewed up a batch of my favorite indoor low-humidity mix, using 4 cups of Mr. B in the process! Plus 5 cups distilled water, 3/4 cup Method Dish soap, 8 oz kosher glycerin. The result? A waste of Mr. B.

The ingredients are not listed on the Method bottle, so I went to their website which is listed on the bottle. Their web page tap dances around what's really in it. The spin they give is that all of their products are more earth friendly, biodegradable etc, "natural ingredients", coconut & palm derivatives. A special blend of surfactants. Natural scents. Never do they actually list ingredients.

The resulting brew was very similar to my ORVUS experiments. Bubbles well, but the bubbles shatter with very little stress put on them. It was even hard to keep a film on the wand after only a couple of bubbles blown. For my own system I classify the mix
as "brittle".

So, my advice, stay away from Method dish soaps even though their advertising
sounds good and they smell nice.

And if you would like to try my favorite low-humidity indoor recipe, it's listed above.
Just don't forget to use the Dawn Complete instead.