Wednesday Explorers Club ~ freezing soap bubbles

Frozen bubble (CC use by Max Pixel)

Can you freeze a bubble? Sure. All you need is some heavy-duty winter-weather bubble mix and a wand or large straw. And a day when the temperatures dip below freezing. Here's one recipe for bubble mix:

• 3 cups water
• 1 cup liquid dish-washing detergent
• 1/2 cup white corn syrup

Adding corn syrup to the soap bubble recipe creates a sugar polymer and a stronger bubble that can survive freezing temperatures.

Head out and try blowing bubbles. Sometimes they will freeze in the air. If that doesn't work, coat a porch railing with a bit of soap solution and then blow a bubble on top of that. Or blow a bubble and attach it to pine needles or winter weeds.


As the bubbles freeze, it looks like bits of frost or snowflakes are forming and growing. What's happening is that the soap bubble is made up of three layers: a thin layer of water molecules squished between two layers of soap. The water layer freezes first, and at lower temperatures than the soap layer.

More Things to Do

• Make bubbles using bubble mix that has been cooled in a refrigerator for 15 minutes or so, and compare with bubbles made using room-temperature mix.
• Try adding sugar to some mix. Does it help bubbles form faster?
• Poke a frozen bubble. What happens? 
• Try to take photos or videos of your bubbles
• Compare bubbles made with a straw versus those made with a wand.
• What happens if you put a drop of food coloring in the mix?
• Try capturing a bubble and putting it in the freezer

If you live where it is warm: blow a bubble on a plastic plate or jar lid and put it in the freezer. What happens?

Freeze a Bubble

It's been so cold these past few days that the marker in the back-porch thermometer has frozen permanently somewhere south of 23 degrees F. That translates to -5 degrees C which, when you read it, looks way colder than it really is.

But still, too cold for the icicles to melt. Or the snow, which keeps piling up.

On the positive side, these temperatures are perfect for freezing soap bubbles. If you've got some bubble mix left over from the summer, go outside on any day when it's below 32 degrees F (0 C) and try this: blow a bubble and then catch it on the bubble wand. Wait a few moments while it freezes - it should turn into a crystal ball before it shatters.

If you want to watch icy crystals form, dip a large loop in the bubble solution - but don't blow a bubble. Instead, watch the crystals grow. They should form a lattice structure.