We found this post on Pinterest that claims you can use a combination of baking soda and vinegar to replace helium in balloons. Above is a screen shot of the pin that is linked to the original post.

We may not be chemistry majors, but this seemed a little fishy to us! We decided to call shenanigans! Below is our attempt this Pinterest project.

Step 1: Gather your materials
1 bottle
1 box of baking soda
1 bottle of vinegar
1 balloon (or more if you want)

Step 2: Fill about 1/3 of the bottle with vinegar.

Step 3: Fill 1/2 of the balloon with baking soda.

Step 4: Place the balloon around the opening of the bottle, making sure the baking soda doesn’t fall in.

Step 5: Dump the baking soda from balloon into the bottle; be sure to hold the balloon around the mouth of the bottle so it doesn’t come off.

Step 6: Watch it inflate!

    

Step 7: Tie and see if it floats….. FAIL

                       

Conclusion: If you need balloons to put on your floor then this is the perfect solution, but it definitely does not replace helium- the balloon didn’t float at all! It was still a really fun experiment, so it wasn’t a complete waste.

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5 Responses

  1. Zanny W. (@MysticalChicken)

    Baking soda + vinegar = carbon dioxide, which is heavier than air. A better comparison for the original pin would have been manually blowing them up with your breath rather than using helium.

  2. Jenn

    Hi! Great site, but I feel it’s unfair to say this pin failed since they never claimed that the balloons would float. They probably could have worded their pin differently, but I didn’t get the impression that the balloons would float.

    • ginni

      helium filled baloons float. so, mere mention of the word helium is supposed to mean that baloon should float.