For this week’s edition of Craft of Crap, we dug a little deeper. Usually, we find our DIY ideas through Pinterest, but why stop there? We debated about a little nail art, but after doing some YouTube research, we found a Mountain Dew glow-in-the-dark trick.  

The project looked legitimate and fairly simple. We got pretty excited to see it work right before our eyes. But does it actually work, we wondered. YouTube (and the Internet in general) is prone to fakes. We had to try it and see for ourselves.

  Here’s what you’ll need: A glass (to pour the excess Mountain Dew in), a spoon, Mountain Dew (16 oz. clear bottle), hydrogen peroxide and baking soda. Sounds pretty simple, right?

  We had to make a quick Walmart run to find hydrogen peroxide. We had no idea it was only 52 cents. Because we already had baking soda, the only other item we needed to buy was the Mountain Dew. Our total came out $2.55. Not bad for a simple do-it-yourself craft.  

  Step One: 

  Pour out most of the Mountain Dew into your glass, until only about 1/4 of the soda is left in the bottle.  

  Step Two:

  Take a spoon and scoop out a very minimal amount of baking soda (see picture for estimated amount) and pour it into the Mountain Dew bottle.

  Step Three: 

  Pour three cap-fulls of hydrogen peroxide into the Mountain Dew/baking soda mix. 

 Step Four:

  Shake well. 

Outcome:

  We got pretty excited, especially with Halloween coming around the corner. We thought this would be a great DIY idea for nifty Halloween decorations. Even children (old enough to understand the glow-in-the-dark trick isn’t drinkable) would love this craft and probably help keep them entertained for a little while.

  We were surprised at the smell of the project. The bottle smelled like Mountain Dew, not a weird mix of hydrogen peroxide, so we wanted to note that if someone does decide to try this with children, to make sure they are careful and at an age they can understand not to drink the mix (probably ten and older).

  Unfortunately, our craft ended up being crap. Following each step carefully left us in a dark room shaking a Mountain Dew bottle with no glow. At first, we wondered if we had used the correct amount of ingredients, so we began to pour a little more hydrogen peroxide into our mini science experiment. After that didn’t work, we put a little more baking soda in and still got nothing. We shook and shook, and still got no light from the bottle.

  The YouTube video made it look so simple. There had to be a way for this to work, we thought. With confidence that this mini science project still had hope, we tried it again. This time, we poured out a little more Mountain Dew than before and followed the directions as stated above.     Again, we shook and shook, and still nothing.

  Maybe our amounts were off, or maybe the Mountain Dew just needed to be warm. Whatever the case, we certainly proved ourselves not worthy of being chemists and declared this craft, a crap.