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Soap bubbles are fun. If you have ever watched a baby play with blown bubbles for the first time, or seen a dog snap at them, or given a child a bubble bath, then you know how magical they can be. How could you possibly improve on such a simple yet fascinating amusement? Tim Kehoe though it would be nice if they were colored. Kehoe is a toy inventor, and colored bubbles became his life’s work. Going into the project, he didn’t know it would take 15 years and $3 million to complete. You’d think it would be a simple matter of adding dye to the soap mixture, but there were problems.
Standard food coloring or dyes have no effect; they simply run down the sides of the bubble, creating a drop of color on the bottom. Other dyes can stain bubbles, but when they pop they also stain clothes, dogs and eyes, as Kehoe discovered during one accident. Other tests, including one for a bubble dye that washed out, didn’t fare much better.
“I thought a washable bubble was a great idea,” said Kehoe. “But the kids (of a large focus group) were covered head to toe in red dye. It looked like a scene from Braveheart.”
In 2005, the Kehoe won the Grand Prize for Innovation from Popular Science for his Zubbles. At the time, we thought we’d be able to get our own Zubbles soon. Two years ago, we expected to see this product on the market any day. 
That was an optimistic promise. But he persevered, and now the product he calls Zubbles is available to the public. So far, the bubbles only come in pinks and blue, sold separately for $14.95. That’s for a mere four ounce bottle. The latest dye technique makes your clothing pink (or blue) but is supposed to disappear in about 15 minutes. A commenter elsewhere provided the first customer review I’d seen, and said the bubbles are less than impressive; that the dye pools at the bottom of the bubbles as in earlier prototypes, and that the dye hadn’t disappeared from her clothing, but it washed off her skin easily. You can see a video made by another customer here. Maybe for this one, I’ll wait until they get the bugs worked out before I place my order.
Comments (7)
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I’ve followed the Zubbles development for a few years and was very excited when I heard they were for sale. I had to buy them immediately… all for my 4 1/2 year old niece, of course.
The pink bubbles work very well and there is no pooling of the color at all. The blue does pool up, but if you are careful to get the excess solution off of the wand before blowing, it reduces a lot of the pooling.
It is really amazing to see the color disappear from your skin. It looks like it just evaporates, making you wonder where it went.
I’m looking forward to future Zubbles colors, and hopefully there will be some blue and pink Zubbles left for my niece to play the next time she visits. :)
posted by Brian on 7-13-2009 at 10:12 am
I forgot to mention that the pink really does look like the pinkish/purplish bubbles in the pictures.
posted by Brian on 7-13-2009 at 10:14 am
How fun! I hope they can perfect it a little more… and bring the price down.
posted by Hyacinth on 7-13-2009 at 11:14 am
FYI – Bubble baths are in the “outs” with Child Doctors – not good especially for little girls.
posted by RobertSeattle on 7-13-2009 at 11:15 am
Bubble baths aren’t all that comfortable for big girls, either.
posted by Miss Cellania on 7-13-2009 at 11:30 am
The coolest thing I’ve ever seen in terms of bubbles, are the catnip bubbles I get… for the cat, of course. Ok, maybe I have more fun with them than he does. But — they are amazing!! They look like your ordinary bubble, but they are much, much stronger. I have a bubble on my ceiling from almost a week ago (I’m seeing how long it will last.) You can collect them & stack them & sometimes they will land on kitty’s whiskers & he’ll run himself in circles trying to catch it.
Catnip bubbles=more awesome than zubbles.
posted by kathryn on 7-13-2009 at 11:42 am
It’s a shame that they don’t impress, but they sound so cool.
I guess I’ll just stick with my scented bubbles. They work, they smell good, and they don’t stain.
posted by Monica on 7-13-2009 at 2:34 pm