So I tend to do some slightly ridiculous things. In this case I wanted to be able to make my fire spinning a little flashier, so I learned how to light my hands on fire to transfer the fire from one end of my staff to another. Is it a good idea? Probably not. Does it look cool? Yeah it does!
The process is fairly simple, you take a flammable liquid, pour it on your hands, then add fire. If you want to do it the safe way there are a few steps to sort out, and a little bit of experimentation to go through.
What you want is a mixture that is 50% alcohol and 50% water. For my own purposes I use a 70% alcohol isopropyl alcohol. So I have mixed ten teaspoons of isopropyl alcohol with 4 teaspoons of water. You could also do 5 / 2 or 20 / 8. Whatever it is that gets you to where you want to be for quantity. Using teaspoons as a measuring amount worked great for me, but you can use whatever you like (tablespoons, cups, litres, whatever) as long as they are equal measurements. Keep in mind there will be some experimentation along the way. If you have too much alcohol it will burn hotter and burn you. If you don’t have enough it doesn’t ignite and stay lit.
The safest way to test is with a piece of paper or other similarly flammable material. I used a strip of paper for my experiments as I have plenty at home. I poured my liquid into an IKEA kids plate and dipped the paper. Once I was ready I ignited the paper to see how it burned. The damp parts lit up, but did not burn the paper, success! As you can see in the video below the paper was soaked in my fuel mixture and the damp parts lit up quite nicely. Since the alcohol and water do not properly mix, the water absorbs into the paper and the alcohol sits on the surface to be burned off. So the fire consumes the alcohol and the water protects the paper, right up until the dry part of the paper is ignited.
As you can see it is important to be careful with this, because yes, I did in fact light my plate of fuel on fire. Thankfully this stuff burns out fast, but I was also doing this in my kitchen, where I had an empty metal sink (with plug in to not pour burning liquid down plastic pipes) to tip everything into if I needed it. Keep in mind, pouring WATER on this fire WILL NOT EXTINGUISH IT!
Once you have this fuel mixture figured out you are pretty much set to light other things on fire, which includes your hands. Keep in mind, this is actual fire and it gets hot fast. You will likely not want to light your hands on fire for more than 2-3 seconds at a time because it does get HOT! There are a few methods for doing this. You can dip your hands in the liquid to fully immerse them or you can pour the liquid on your hands. Regardless of which method you use the safest way to do this is to:
- Wear rubber gloves
- do not wear long / loose clothing
- do not do this in a location where other flammable materials are present.
Though it looks cool when you light your bare hands on fire this takes some practice, and maybe a little pain as you figure out how to do it. If you wear rubber gloves you can make a much larger fire and hold it for longer, but the spectacle is a little less prominent. One of the important steps here is to make sure your hands are evenly coated. If you wind up with a spot that does not get that barrier of water then you risk burning yourself with the fire.
You are not restricted to isopropyl alcohol as there are lots of other things that are flammable. But having an alcohol content is important. If you were to use a liquid like camping fuel or gasoline it will work, but these sources tend to burn hotter and will absorb into things. So lighting your hands on fire with gasoline is a terribly idea. Something as simple as hand sanitizer, of which there is likely some around at all times, is also possible, but the flame will be less impressive.
To make the fire a little more visible you can add some salt. This actually serves two purposes:
- Salt makes the fire burn red instead of blue. Alcohol based fire tends to burn a light blue, which is not the most visible.
- Salt helps cause the water and alcohol to separate, providing an extra bit of protection for whatever item you are igniting.
There is no exact amount of salt to make it work. Too much is bad, too little is pointless. My own experimentations have led me to use approximately 1.5 teaspoons of salt in my 14 teaspoon mixture. Roughly 10% of your mixture is salt. If you have 10 teaspoons of liquid, then add 1 teaspoon of salt. This is not hard fast science on my end though, just a little bit of experimentation.
Long story short: Ideally you want a mix of 50% alcohol and 50% water. You want to evenly coat the surface you are about to ignite, and you want to make sure you are doing this in a safe and controlled location. Rubber gloves are also a good idea, and salt helps make the fire more noticeable.
I feel like maybe instead of spinning fire I should have simply made a blog about lighting stuff on fire?
