Supertato

[ViaRia01]

My son received a sure-start book bundle via his preschool and inside was a book based on the supertato character. Have you seen it? It’s the story of an evil pea who comes along and spoils the veggies’ fun by adding too much bubble mixture and making everything too bubbly. The veggies are trying to find a way to make the bubbles disappear and the thing they use in the end to pop the bubbles is a bar of soap. The book states that the soap can pop the bubbles ‘because surface tension’

Am I missing something? Surely soap would make the bubbles bubblier, not make them disappear. What do you think?

YABU, soap would make the bubbles disappear (and here’s the is reason why…)

YANBU, that’s an enormous plot hole and they veggies should have stuck with their first plan: popping the bubbles with the pointy pencils.

Not sure anyone can thoroughly advise without pictures of said soap…

My autism really wants to answer this question, but my ADHD can’t be arsed

I often put soap in to get rid of bubbles and it works... nonidea what ingredients and chemical reactions happens but it does work - you need to slosh it around though if not liquid

Ah Supertato has a new adventure - we loved those books

No idea, but love your thread!

Soap bubbles and detergent bubbles are different - have you ever tried washing yourself with soap in a bubble bath? The bubble bath bubbles disappear very quickly.

Yes, adding certain types of soap or other chemicals (like oil or lotion) can make existing soap bubbles disappear, primarily by interfering with the delicate surface tension, introducing impurities, or causing chemical reactions (like forming anti-foaming lime soaps with hard water) that destabilize the bubble's thin film. While soap helps form bubbles by reducing surface tension, adding more or the wrong type of soap, especially with oils/grease or hard water minerals, breaks them down.

I had to find this out as my DD who has ASD, didn't believe it either!

When I was a child (so around 50 years ago) I was taught that swirling a bar of soap around the sink after emptying the washing up water would make the bubbles disappear faster. It definitely works but I don't know the science behind it.

The science of soap is quite complex. From AI.....

Many bubble baths use 12-carbon-chain surfactants, while traditional bar soaps often contain longer 18-carbon chains. When the longer-chain soap molecules mix into a bubble film made of shorter chains, it causes a sudden local increase in surface tension. This creates stress and mechanical instability, causing the bubble to rupture before the mixture can equalise.

That's just what Big Soap wants you to think...

I despise supertato, poor DS knows to ask daddy to read them rather than me. I don’t even really know what it is, I just really really don’t like them!!

@NannyR Yes, good point. Still not the wiser in terms of science but this real life observation can at least put my mind at ease.

@MsVisual well, who knew?! Best scientific explanation- very clear and makes sense. I had just assumed that bubble mixture was basically a soap solution and that all soap was essentially the same.

@Buttons0522 me too, to be honest. I do 90% of all childcare and bedtime books though so unfortunately I just have to get on with it!

Do not ever watch the cartoon! My grand-daughter asked to watch it once - I'm still traumatised.

I think this is my favourite answer to anything, ever. So relatable!

But also, yes. Bars of soap dissipate bubbles.