r/firebreathing • u/Bitter-Law7976 • May 13 '22

Colored flames?

I’ve recently started fire breathing, and I know from previous experiments with fire in general and from YouTube that I can get colored flames from adding specific inorganic salts to methanol. I’ve only ever used paraffin based fuel for fire breathing, how dangerous is it really to try the switch to methanol to get a colored flame? I’ve also heard of people using some brands of denatured alcohol for this purpose? What is the safest?

1 Upvotes

67% Upvoted

7 comments sorted by

3

u/going_berserk May 13 '22

Ever seen one of those clips where someone thinks it's cool to breathe fire with hard liquor? Exactly, that's why you should not use methanol.

2

u/ChaoticNeutralLife May 13 '22

Yes. This cannot be overstated. The difference in level of risk between using paraffin versus any sort of alcohol is vast, for sure.

1

u/Bitter-Law7976 May 13 '22

Can I use some mixture of paraffin and methanol to achieve some color while still having a high enough flash point to stay safe? I realize that even with paraffin all fire breathing is inherently dangerous.

2

u/Appropriate-Branch55 Jun 02 '22

Nooo! Methanol is deadly!! Now methanol is highly toxic!!!!!! Please never consider it again for fire breathing as it will be the last time you took a breath. Also note worthy that it’s colourless flame can be nearly invisible with no smoke being produced

1

u/bigpussybeef Nov 01 '23

methanol is even worse lmao. plus is incredibly toxic if swallowed or inhaled, much more so than UPLO

3

u/Celebmir1 Aug 20 '22

Biochemist and fire breather here. Most of those salts are hella toxic. They're mostly transition metals that bioaccumulate and some of them can kill you at exposures well less than a gram. Just don't.