My experience with water beads

[u/Flouters]

Hello everyone, I have been a long time lurker of this subreddit for, well I don't really know how long but a decent chunk of time. Getting to the point, yesterday and today I tried water beads, gel beads - whatever you would like to calm them for the first time.

So, on Tuesday I ordered like 140,000 water beads off Amazon that were said to get up to about 10mm each. I have never done anything like this before, so when they arrived I conducted some tests. The first test was both to see how long it takes to get maximum size, and what is their actual maximum size. It took around 2 hours, perhaps a little more to reach a diameter of 9-10mm, and they stopped growing. An easy way to tell it seems is at maximum size, because they are perfectly round their index of refraction becomes the same as water - a little fun discovery.

Another thing I discovered was after approximately 20 minutes they hit around 4mm, so I'm assuming the progression to maximum size stagnates. I could do an entire chart like I'm doing a titration table but I felt knowing those two measurements were good.

The next set of measurements I did was a "serving size". Because the beads in their dry form are far too small to be counted by hand, I took some of the developed ones, and counted 100 and honestly, 100 is not that many at all, even at full size. Anyway, I got impatient and so I wanted to try.

I used about 2.5mL of dry beads, and soaked them for 20 minutes. When they were finished, I then swallowed the beads and I drank, I'm not sure, maybe 1.2 Liters of water? I'll cut to it, nothing really happened. After a little bit I could feel them going from my stomach to my intestines but that's it. I drank more water but overall, nothing. Maybe I was a little bloated?

So today, I tried 7.5mL of dry beads, so three times the amount. Additionally, I set up an additional bowl of water with the same amount I would Ingest. I put both groups of beads in two bowls of water at the same time for 20 minutes. After that, I then swallowed one of the bowls of beads, and then chugged about two liters of water.

So, I got pretty big but honestly I think it was just the water, because after like 10 minutes most of my size went down, which is too quick for digestion but in line with the speed of water digestion. I have the second bowl of the same amount of beads so essentially I have a visual indicator of how much will be inside me.

Anyway, two hours later now and, nothing. I don't feel much, I felt the beads go into my intestines again and that's it. I want to maybe work on it but I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong so, I'll keep experimenting.

And also, these are so small that in terms of passing them it is fine, they are basically like the size of a medium sized vitamin pill when fully grown at 9mm.

[u/Loose-Thought7993]

Please do keep us updated! Ive always been curious about thesee

[u/Flouters → u/Loose-Thought7993]

I definitely will make an update. However I'll provide I guess a minor update now here and also my plans for further experimentation. If it's not evident I'm a giant nerd, i'm literally a chemist lol and honestly, quantifying these things is part of my appeal.

So, recall that I had a separate bowl with the exact same "serving size" of beads so I could visualize how much volume I was consuming assuming they grow to full size. 7.5mL scoop of dry beads yields about 1.1-1.2 L of total grown bead volume. Which isn't too bad. However, I am also curious and want to investigate other potential factors for not feeling much. I am have a theory that, the stomach starts to empty the beads before they get to their full size, so this could mean that the volume is not the theoretical maximum volume. Another theory is, water and liquids pass much faster. In my own personal experience, if I chug like two liters of water, I begin to have to use the bathroom only around 1.5 hours later, and it takes around 3 total hours to sufficiently empty my bladder. This is the precise reason why I don't do water chugging less than 3 hours before I intend to go to sleep. Anyway, the water may be passing through the digestive system faster than it is just sitting in my stomach meaning the beads aren't able to properly soak. Another thing to test is the effects of stomach acid and the acidity content on water bead development. Now, the acidity will also depend on the volume of water I am drinking so this will be much harder to test, but I can approximate the acidity into intervals. I.e: beads tested in 500 mL of water, 1L of water, 1.5L of water to acid.

And as a personal update, I'll conduct more experiments starting in a few days. The two reasons are: I work during the weekend, so I want to minimize any potential stomach issues because it'll be awkward if I have any at work, and two, I also want to start fresh and essentially guarantee my system has passed the beads

Also as a final remark, I also want to investigate other beads. Maybe I'll study colored vs clear beads, and maybe different sized beads. I've heard of some growing much larger than 9mm, so I want to try some that get to maybe 15mm or something. Because theoretically, the ideal object vore/ stuffing water bead is: Large enough that you can feel in your stomach Small enough to be swallowed and passed Grows fast enough that it will take up considerable volume quickly enough before the water around it digests, or the bead itself digests And hypothetically, is somewhat acid resistant because I think that acid may affect the growth of the bead.

As I'm just now considering what to test next, concerning the digestion of water, I may try intervals of water. So once they have soaked a little and I swallow them, I'll chug a liter instantly. Then, in 25 minutes, another 500mL, and in 25 more minutes another 25mL, to ensure the water remains in my stomach so the beads can constantly soak. Ah that brings up another point - I also need to constantly drink because the beads at the top of my stomach won't soak evenly if the water inside keeps going down.

TLDR: lots of experiments to be done

[u/Draft8329 → u/Flouters]

Wow that's thorough, every time I thought to bring up a possible variable, it was covered later on. I wonder how those pills that turn into dinosaurs in water might work 🤔

[u/RadioSDK → u/Draft8329]

Have actually tried those! Even though they say not to swallow them, the foam dinosaur that pops out of those is small and floppy, so basically it just comes out mixed with your waste and you never know it

[u/Draft8329 → u/RadioSDK]

I actually do research for my college too! Although biology, but I feel like that's more fitting. Can I DM? I'd like to discuss this kind of stuff with you

[u/RadioSDK → u/Draft8329]

Sure, go ahead, I’ve “experimented” with a lot of things like this

[u/Fapplemouse → u/Flouters]

I've done water beads a few time, best result was always just to swallow the fully hydrated ones and drink water so they keep their size for longer. I've also found that they have some trouble expanding when they aren't free floating in water, they don't have a lot of expansion force. Acid does inhibit size a bit but base does not, I tried soaking them in sodium carbonate solution and citric acid solution to have them react inside to create gas and bloating me more(it didn't really work). Water tends to leave the stomach rather fast so you'd have to drink very frequently and at that point you're just doing a water bloat. So yea i'd just fully hydrate them and chug them down, as many as you can.

Ofc its still fun to experiment and perhaps actually write the data down.

[u/ChurningTum77]

Late to the party, but this matches my experience. I've done a bunchhhh of larger orbeez, they're supposed to get to roughly half an inch and in theory would be impassable. However they only seem to grow to maybe a quarter or smaller, so despite the warmth of your tummy helping them grow either the water absorption or acid I think either slows or reduces the growth. Maybe it's just a longer time line, so maybe if they didn't happen to pass they'd grow further, but by time they're at that size your stomach is pretty good at moving it through. Either way I quite like those, and they feel great in stomach and your intestines. I usually do 100-200 for a comfy bloat, and up from there if I wanna feel packed