Giant Bubble Wands and Bubble Drama

We absolutely LOVE bubbles!  i have posted several times in the past few years about How to Make giant bubble wands and giant bubbles. In 2010 i first posted this blog post about making giant bubbles.  Then in 2011 i posted another post about giant bubbles, this time including a basic tutorial on how to Make your own giant bubble wand. 

The post has been incredibly popular, and the pictures i posted of my children making giant bubbles have been so popular that they have been stolen right off of my website to promote various bubble making kits and bubble mixtures.  This infuriates me to no end. Not only is it completely uncool to steal someones photos from a blog, these photos contain pictures of my children and they may not be used without permission!  

We achieved these gigantic bubbles with items we had around the house, not some mass produced kit and 'special' bubble mix. So the fact that other companies try to use these photos to represent their product really gets under my skin. If your product is so great why are you using my photos?

These unbelievable large bubbles are made using our own homemade wand and my 'special' bubble mix. i'll post our bubble mix secret in just a bit. ;) 

Earlier this week it was brought to my attention that once again someone was using my images to sell their bubble wands on Amazon. They used this image taken from the 2011 post. 

They also stole this image from the 2010 post. My guess is that the wands they are selling are made using the free tutorial i posted. Nice eh?  Okay, not surprising at all, but the fact that they are using my pictures is NOT okay.  So i shared the link on my FB page asking folks what i can do to get the images removed. 

i posted a 'Question to the seller' on amazon stating the photos were taken from my blog and they did not have permission to use them. Several of my friends immediately wrote negative reviews, accusing the seller of misrepresenting the product by using the stolen images from a personal blog.  One of my friends sent me a pm saying her job is in internet privacy and security, she does this kind of thing for living and she would contact them on my behalf. So she contacted Amazon and contacted the seller, and by the next morning the pictures had been removed. 

The Company Amazing Bubble Wands Sold by D.I Imports that used my photos on Amazon have since changed the pictures. They never responded to my message or to the negative reviews, but they removed the photos quickly and replaced them with new images. i did a quick search for giant bubbles on google and noticed one of the images they were using was stolen yet again. This time they were using a image from http://lusaorganics.typepad.com/  Who also has a free Giant Bubble Wand tutorial posted.  i contacted the owner of the blog to let her know her images was being used and she contacted them and left negative feedback, but the image is still up.  

The company is not only using stolen images that it finds on the web, but in the listing it is also using another company's trademarked name. The terms Extreme Bubbles and Dip Stix, are a trademarked product from another company that has been fighting to have them removed from amazon.  

If you want to buy a giant wand and special bubble making soap, there are several companies that make them. However, i would recommend one with better business practice than Amazing Bubble Wands Sold by D.I Imports.   You might even leave them a message on Amazon letting them know how totally crappy it is to steal photos from a blog. ;)

However, i would suggest making your own bubble wand.  You'll end up with the same Amazing Bubble Wand that D.I. imports is selling, since it's pretty much a guarantee that they used the tutorial to make their wands then stole the pictures to promote them.  The wands are made with wooden dowels or sticks, two screw eyes and some cotton yarn, cotton piping or clothes line. You can add a washer to the bottom to weigh it down, but it's not necessary.

 Want to know my special bubble recipe for making bubble so big bubble companies need to steal the pictures? Ivory Dish soap and water. Yep, thats all. Seventh generation dish soap works too.  i put about 3" of water in the bottom of a bucket, and add a couple big squirts of dish soap.  That's it.