instant pop

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  • Glaziola
    Junior Member
    • Feb 2018
    • 21

    instant pop

    I remember around 15 years ago me and my school were playing around with balloons and when ever they touched the floor the popped instantly. (Not going to lie I was terrified at the time).
    But come to present day I still have no idea why they popped as soon as they touched the floor. Any ideas why? And is there a way I could replicate this in any way, or to make balloons pop as easily as possible?
  • BalloonBoyUK
    Banned
    • Dec 2018
    • 500

    #2
    Re: instant pop

    It will either have been:
    1) because the balloons were poor quality/cheap toy balloons, which have poor quality control
    2) because the balloon was too overinflated, and burst
    3) because the balloon hit static, and burst
    4) because the balloon came into contact with something sharp, pointed, or hot, and burst

    There's always the chance is was just simply defective, as well.

    If you want to replicate this, just buy the cheapest balloons you can find, and try blowing them up to their intended size. Alternatively, just buy a balloon, blow it up to near-bursting, tie it off, and leave it. It'll pop soon enough.

    One final option: spray balloons with baby oil and/or citrus juice from a fresh orange or lemon. They'll pop within seconds! Latex doesn't like baby oil, nor fresh citrus juice one bit. You'll certainly guarantee some loud bangs, if that's your thing.

    Comment

    • Tracy
      Senior Member
      • May 2018
      • 196

      #3
      Re: instant pop

      I would guess it was just dust and crap on the floors. Depending on how tight your balloons are (and how cheap, I imagine), sometimes a little grit on the floor will take care of a falling balloon.

      I had one spot at my house next to my favorite balloon-blowing chair in the sunroom. On two or three separate occasions I'd have an inflated toy nearby and BANG! After this happened more than once, I got down on the floor and felt around with my hand... and found a tiny sharp bit of grit wedged between the floorboards. Apparently that by itself was doing the job.

      I imagine that most school floors have quite a bit more crud than our living room did, so that would be my guess

      Comment

      • EthylTheAardvark
        Senior Member
        • Nov 2016
        • 143

        #4
        Re: instant pop

        Originally posted by Tracy
        I would guess it was just dust and crap on the floors. Depending on how tight your balloons are (and how cheap, I imagine), sometimes a little grit on the floor will take care of a falling balloon.

        I had one spot at my house next to my favorite balloon-blowing chair in the sunroom. On two or three separate occasions I'd have an inflated toy nearby and BANG! After this happened more than once, I got down on the floor and felt around with my hand... and found a tiny sharp bit of grit wedged between the floorboards. Apparently that by itself was doing the job.

        I imagine that most school floors have quite a bit more crud than our living room did, so that would be my guess
        I'd have guessed maybe cleaning chemical residue, but that would make sense, too. I have to check for little specks of kitty litter before putting a balloon down anywhere, because my cat tracks it all over the place. A tiny little piece of kitty litter will pop a balloon as easily as a pin will. And that's with the good quality balloons I get. Schools are notoriously cheap about supplies like that.


        Gritty stuff (like sandpaper) will pop a balloon pretty quickly. Plastic forks and knives make for interesting balloon popping instruments too heh heh.

        Comment

        • palloncino90
          Senior Member
          • Jan 2018
          • 391

          #5
          Re: instant pop

          The balloon surely came into contact with something which let popped it.
          Sometimes instant pop even happens throwing a balloon in the air. Ever happened to anyone?
          I want to live surrounded of big and colorful balloons

          Comment

          • SusieDK
            Senior Member
            • Dec 2017
            • 201

            #6
            Re: instant pop

            Originally posted by palloncino90
            The balloon surely came into contact with something which let popped it.
            Sometimes instant pop even happens throwing a balloon in the air. Ever happened to anyone?
            Hi,

            Actually this was how I became phobic of balloons when I was very little. I played with a balloon (the first I ever had - and had ever seen), and while batting it into the air it suddenly popped in mid-air scaring me to no end. It made such an impression on me that I can still recall how the balloon floated gracefully through the air and then all of sudden: BANG!!! Had this not happened or if I had only known it could happen, then I probably wouldn't have developed this 'thing' with balloons. Strange how something seemingly totally insignificant can have such an impact on ones entire life!
            Looking back it must either have been a weak balloon or blown up too far.
            Nowadays I sometimes reenact the experience by blowing up a balloon super tight, tying it off and carefully batting it around until at some point it pops all by itself.
            It is not what I like the most and not what really 'does the trick’ either, but it is super cool nevertheless.

            When I decorate with balloons - this happens almost entirely on New Years Eve - I always blow the balloons up so much that some will burst during the evening. It is cool how it makes everybody jump (myself included), and besides it gives me an opportunity to repair the decoration and thereby blow up some balloons. I can always 'accidentially' blow one up a little too far. *giggles*
            I guess I got a little carried away and strayed away from the issue, - sorry.....

            Thank you for reading my posting.

            Sincerely
            Susie
            Last edited by SusieDK; 25-01-2019, 12:19. Reason: Adding missing letter.

            Comment

            • Glaziola
              Junior Member
              • Feb 2018
              • 21

              #7
              Re: instant pop

              Originally posted by BalloonBoyUK
              One final option: spray balloons with baby oil and/or citrus juice from a fresh orange or lemon. They'll pop within seconds! Latex doesn't like baby oil, nor fresh citrus juice one bit. You'll certainly guarantee some loud bangs, if that's your thing.
              Any specific brand of oil? I tried with one and nothing happened

              Comment

              • srob2
                Senior Member
                • Dec 2017
                • 352

                #8
                Re: instant pop

                When I b2p, it isn't unusual it pops on its own between breaths - even if this is only a few seconds. I think if you are less than 1 full breath from burst, it will eventually explode on its own if you wait.

                Comment

                • BalloonBoyUK
                  Banned
                  • Dec 2018
                  • 500

                  #9
                  Re: instant pop

                  Originally posted by Glaziola
                  Any specific brand of oil? I tried with one and nothing happened
                  Pretty much any kinds of oil, or any zest from an actual orange/lemon fruit itself, will do the damage. So will any kind of chemical cleaners that include orange/lemon scent in them.

                  If you want to try it out, for yourself, just buy an ordinary orange or lemon, cut it open, and get some of the citrus juice on your fingers, then start playing with some balloons. You'll soon realise how horrendous citrus juice is! The same with Baby Oil. Basically, any liquids you would NOT use on/with condoms, will do the same damage to a balloon, as it basically eats through the latex/rubber so quickly.

                  Only do this, if you don't mind popping balloons though! You have been warned!

                  Comment

                  • LoudPopper
                    Senior Member
                    • Jan 2016
                    • 228

                    #10
                    Re: instant pop

                    Yeah more than likely either some small particles on the floor or an imperfection on the floor. Note however, that underinflated balloons are much less likely to suddenly go boom compared to a super tightly inflated one. Also, the more loons that you keep around each other, the better chance of static electricity buildup and more likely to make random pops. I'd say underinflated balloons are key to prevent this. Think-- any sharp object must still produce enough tension in the surface of the loon to cause a defect in it's skin forcing it to break. A less inflated balloon has much more leway to stretch than a tight one, making it more resilient to crud on the ground that would otherwise pierce it.

                    In my old house, when I had a spare room, I used to let it double as a balloon room. Sometimes I'd fill it with literally hundreds of balloons, and sometimes I'd leave them in there for days on end. Back before I caught on and realized that if I kept a bunch of them less tightly inflated to keep down the random pops, I used to have this problem all the time. Gotta say it's pretty awkward to have friends/family over the house with a full balloon room upstairs and constantly worrying about spontaneous pops. I've had this happen a number of times, even with family, and it's always been a difficult thing to explain what that noise was lol.

                    And like what BalloonBoyUK said earlier, balloons and oils don't mix very well. Keeping stuff away that you wouldn't use on a condom is a general good rule of thumb. I've seen actual citrus juice do the trick to make a spontaneous bang. I've also seen it work with a citrus essential oil as well. Try inflating the balloon up as tight as possible and it'll probably go off for you. Try lightly squeezing an orange wedge directly over it so the orange creates a mist with the juice rather than outright dripping juice. Another good way to get a more of a mist of citrus oil is to put the oil in a spray bottle. I've seen this work on youtube. But for me, citrus and a super tight balloon is what's most consistently caused this effect. Hopefully this is what will make that balloon go boom for you! ... that's if you want it to of course, lol.

                    As far as more common oils are concerned, I've experimented with them a lot in my earlier years of looning when I was figuring out all the sorts of ways I could have fun with balloons. I used to use vasilene, baby oil, or olive oil as a lubricant when I was humping balloons. I found that vasiline and oils typically lasted a little longer on the underinflated loons that I would hump on, so they were able to take the pressue of me laying and grinding on them. The tighter the loon however, the weaker the loon would become. I've played with oil a loons A LOT back in the day so I have pretty good experience. I have to say that even with tightly filled balloons, putting baby oil (which is particularly good at weakening loons) on a balloon would never trigger a spontaneous pop however. You'd always have to put some pressure on it or interact with it by squeezing etc to make it pop. Again, if you put oil on a more underinflated balloon, they're much more resilient. Oil definitely makes the balloon surface weaker but never to the point with an instantaneous pop. This may be why you didn't get the citrus to make the loon burst that last time.

                    Comment

                    • Slugamano
                      Senior Member
                      • Jul 2016
                      • 209

                      #11
                      Re: instant pop

                      We enjoy the spontaneously popping balloons. We have CFL bulbs in the house and we realized that residual UV light coming from the bulb can degrade latex and make the balloons pop after a while. When we have balloon decoration the balloons close to the lamps tend to pop. The closer and tighter the faster. We can bet which one will be the next one :-)…

                      Comment

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