Colored Bubbles are a TERRIBLE Idea

UPDATE: Apparently not all colored bubble solution is terrible, just Crayola. See the comment from Am below for another brand recommendation!

Over this past weekend I spent a lot of time blowing bubbles with M. We had a variety of different bubble wands (very long oval ones, standard circle, multiple circles, etc.) and modes of bubble blowing (battery powered, old-fashioned, etc.) as well as different types of bubble solution (fancy, cheap-o). It made for some good times with my parents, and made us all feel like kids again for a short time. During this bubble extravaganza I thought to myself, wouldn't it be cool if they had colored bubble solution so you could have different colored bubbles???

Well, to my surprise (and horror - I was going to make millions with this idea!!) I stumbled upon Crayola's "Washable Colored Bubbles" today at Babies R Us (where by the way you cannot get any sort of normal bubbles anymore - no I do not want a motorized aligator who blows bubbles for me). I purchased this amazing looking set that included 6 crazy looking wands (square?? my mind is blown!) and two "spill-resistant bottles" - one with orange solution, the other with green.

We got home, got set up outside in our chairs, and I opened up the packaging. Of course I gave M the yellow wand, and took the square for myself...and we popped open the orange solution. I put my wand in what looked like thinned out blood, and pulled it out and blew - and crazy looking orange bubbles flew through the air...and then landed...and made giant orange marks on the deck! And then the wand dripped on me, and I had what looked like blood all over my leg and hands. And as I am trying to get some water out of the baby pool to splash on the ground, M already has her wand in the disgusting bottle...and then yanks it out and it gets all over her legs and arms and hands...and she tried to blow bubbles and then gets it on her mouth and face!

OMG we looked like we just killed a small animal with our bare hands. It was freaking disgusting. I immediately put a stop to it, especially because what says is "washable" is not "rinsable" as the orange circles on the deck from the 3 small bubbles that I successfully blew were still there after a good rinsing. I had to go get a paper towel and scrub the marks to get it out. And then scrub our legs and arms to get it off of us - took a bath to get it all off of M. And this was after 15 seconds with it!

Soooooo - lesson learned: there was a reason they had so many of the "washable colored bubble" sets left and no normal bubbles on the shelf. They are ridiculous, and a waste of money. Only good thing that came out of it is that we now have a wicked cool set of bubble wands to use in our Gymboree bubble solution...which is still the best bubble solution on the market!

Damn am I glad I didn't put more than a seconds thought into this money making idea, because I don't think anyone is making money off this one!