[mochaccino]

I actually started reading this thread again because I wanted to propose a little experiment. It's just honey and distilled water, so I doubt there's any danger in trying it out, especially if you keep things sterile. I'm not sure if I want to try it out myself just yet, only because I'm not sure I want to dedicate myself to another long term project at this time when I'm already doing NBE, working out, waist training, and doing a few other things, here and there, that I haven't even mentioned on this board.

Someone else has already explained that honey needs to be diluted to a particular PH in order to produce hydrogen peroxide. It's explained in post #543 on this page: http://www.breastnexus.com/showthread.php?pid=71532 I'm not sure I agree with every last word of that post, but it's very well thought out, and I think the PH test strips idea is a very good one, so big thanks to Diannalynn for posting it. IMO, you have two options. 6 is the optimal PH for honey to produce peroxide. You could follow Diannalynn's suggestion and aim for a PH of 5.5 to (hopefully) compensate for the change of PH due to eye moisture and allow the peroxide to be produced on the eyeball itself. Alternatively, you could aim for a PH of 6 to begin with, and allow the peroxide to develop for one hour in the bottle before application.

There are also several other things to keep in mind if you want to get optimal peroxide production from your honey, like avoiding any additives that contain vitamin C, and not keeping it around for more than 24 hours. Here's a link to a post by Ktani, a former member of longhaircommunity.com, about how to insure that your honey mixture produces the most peroxide possible (it's actually about hair lightening with honey) : http://ktanihairsense.blogspot.com/2009/...aches.html . I think I linked to her blog earlier in this thread, but it seems like not many people got to read it because it got buried so quickly by the sheer number of posts. Ktani recommends a 4:1 water/honey dilution, but that is based on assumptions about average honey acidity. It's possible that it really would be the best dilution for the vast majority of honeys, but I don't know for sure, and PH test trips would be a bit more accurate. You could start with a 4:1 dilution, and then adjust as necessary to reach the proper PH. Once you find the right dilution, you wouldn't need to use the PH test strips again until you buy a new bottle of honey.

Of course, it's hard to say how much your own tears would alter the dilution after application. Diannalynn's recommended PH is an attempt to compensate for some of the dilution in the eye, but if you produce a massive amount of tears in response to the irritation, honey and any other actives could easily be washed out.

I do have an idea (that I actually "borrowed" from several other people ) for how to reduce tearing, and hopefully limit dilution and keep the actives from being washed out. Bittyboy (although there are some good reasons to question his honesty) and Thor from http://eyecolorboard.boardspace.org/ claim to have kept there eyes closed for five minutes after applying their drops of choice. They didn't say that they did it to reduce tearing, as far as I know, but I imagine that it would have that effect. They both claimed extreme eye lightening results. I've only dabbled in eye lightening to see what it was like and then stopped, but in my experience, keeping my eyes closed seems to reduce tearing by a ton. I'm sure other people have experienced the same when they accidentally got shampoo in their eyes in the shower. Either way, this is the only method for reducing tearing that I'm aware of, other than avoiding irritation by using weaker eye drops that might not be as effective (or do anything at all).

As far as choosing honey, Jarrah is probably the best choice, even in comparison to Manukah. Both of these honeys are rated by antibacterial activity, but Manukah contains a special "extra" substance that has antibacterial activity but does not produce peroxide. Manukah still contains plenty of the enzyme that produces peroxide, of course, but the ratings we are interested in are measures of total antibacterial activity and don't distinguish between peroxide levels and NPA (non peroxide activity). Peroxide production is the only kind of activity relevant eye lightening. As far as I know, Jarrah honey doesn't have any NPA, so that means that it's rating should be a direct reflection of it's ability to produce peroxide. On the other hand the "Active" rating or TA (total activity) is not well regulated, so there is nothing stopping honey sellers from exaggerating or using crappy testing methods. The only way around this is to buy from well known sellers rather than buying the cheapest Jarrah honey available. Of course, that's no guarantee of honesty, but I'd rest a little easier if I were buying from a reputable seller. It's possible that a TA of 10 is high enough, but I'd like to see people experiment with a TA of at least 20, as proof of concept. If that doesn't work, than it would be hard to argue that they just needed to use a stronger honey.

Here's the actual experiment I'm suggesting:
1) Use Jarrah honey with a TA of 20 or more
2) Use distilled water (it can be purchased at almost any supermarket, Walmart, or other similar store)
3) Begin with a distilled water/honey ratio of 4:1 and adjust until you reach a PH of 6 according to PH test strips. Don't heat the honey. You can boil the water to sterilize it, but it has to be allowed to cool before adding the honey.
4) Allow the peroxide to develop for at least an hour before application.
5) Replace the mixture every 24 hours (per Ktani's instructions)
6) Sterilize your dropper bottle, funnel etc. at least once a week.
7) Don't add any other ingredients. This is partly to avoid any chemicals that might deplete the peroxide, but it's also because I'd like to see the honey water mixture tested on it's own. Otherwise it could be hard to tell what's doing what. Other ingredients might work, and there's not necessarily anything wrong with adding them, but it wouldn't be a pure honey/peroxide experiment anymore.
8) Close your eyes immediately after application and keep them closed for 5 minutes (start a timer just before using the drops).
9) Use the drops at least twice a day, or as much as you like.
10) Take progress pics, and report back in at least a month, but hopefully 3, or even 6 months. Taking the pics in a windowless room with a door is one way to insure fairly consistent lighting. It would also help to stand in exactly the same spot, use the same camera angle, etc.

That sounds complicated, but it's actually extremely simple, and it seems worth a try. I'm not holding my breath until anyone tries this, but if anyone actually does decide to try this out, please let everyone know so we can track your progress. You could even start a personal program thread on eyecolorboard instead, and link to it in this thread. In the end, there's a small chance I'll try it out myself, but don't rely on me to try it out for you if you're curious. At the moment, I'm not planning on doing this myself.

At the very least, maybe several people will incorporate some of these ideas into their own programs, and we can at least get a vague idea of whether these modifications help at all. I make no promises that it will work, which is why I'm interested in seeing people test it out.