Silly String

Silly String is often used during weddings, birthday parties, carnivals and other festive occasions, and has also been used by the US military to detect tripwires.

Silly String is made of a mixture of components dispersed throughout a liquid solvent in the product’s aerosol can.

Other ingredients include silicone fluid (to make the strands easier to clean up), flame retardant, and a pigment for color.

When under pressure inside the can, the propellant is in liquid form, but when the nozzle is opened, it rapidly escapes – along with the compounds mixed in it – and evaporates as it enters the air.

This allows the product to weakly adhere to people and windows, for instance, but easily be cleaned up without the string falling apart or staining inert surfaces.

[1] The current formulation is not published, but one of the primary recipes in the original patent calls for 12.2% of the synthetic resin poly(isobutyl methacrylate) by weight.

One day later, Fish received a telegram asking him to send 24 cans of "Squibbly" for a market test immediately, signed by the same individual who had kicked him out.

[5][6][7] The military applications of Silly String were first discovered by Sergeant First Class David B. Chandler, Chief Instructor of the United States Army's Sapper Leader Course, in 1993.

[12] The use of aerosol string products has been banned in several places for various reasons, including cleanup and removal costs and fears of potential damage to house or vehicle paint.

[13] The town board of Huntington on Long Island banned the sale of Silly String within 1,500 feet (460 m) of the route of a parade.

[16] In 2004, Los Angeles enacted a city ordinance (LAMC Section 56.02) to ban aerosol string in Hollywood on Halloween night.