The Willy Wonka of soap bubbles

Have you ever wondered why soap bubbles are always clear? I hadn't, until I read this article. Apparently, if dye is introduced to soap bubbles, it all just flows down to the bottom, creating a colored dot at the bottom of a still-clear bubble.

A Minnesota toy inventor wondered why he couldn't make colored bubbles, and spent 11 years of his life working on the problem, sometimes with funny results:

Color remained elusive, but his try-anything approach kept plenty of other strange bubbles floating across his kitchen. One exploded with a loud bang. Another gave him chemical burns when it popped. The best one bounced, just like a Super Ball. He thought he could have sold that one, but he couldn't re-create it. He could rarely re-create any of his experiments. "I never wrote anything down," he says. "I'd get too excited as I was doing it. But once I lost that bouncing bubble, I was crushed. I started videotaping myself so that next time I'd know more than ‘It was something on that side of the kitchen.' "

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He finally perfected a colored bubble, but it would leave a permanent colored stain wherever it popped. It would be several more years before he met up with a chemist who understood what was needed: disappearing color.

This is a long article, but REALLY entertaining. The story about his first official "debut" of the bubbles (when they were washable, but the freaked out a bunch of moms when they say their kids turning multi-colored) is hilarious.

My favorite bubbles lately have been catnip bubbles... Kayla goes BANANAS over them. :D They're glycerin-based instead of soap based, I think, because they're harder to blow than soap bubbles, but at least they don't get soap on the cat's face and paws when she pounces on 'em.