News: Make your fingers smoke

Smoking fingers is a basic magic trick, but it still gets a wow up-close, especially if your audience is barside and slightly inebriated.

The "brown stuff" is the red phosphorus and glass powder. The friction from rubbing fingertips produces smoke, but no flame.

Amp this trick up with several matchbooks worth of "brown stuff" to make your whole hands smoke!

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Photo by J/F/, Flickr.

99 Comments

Cute trick. No voice-over explanation, but that's not necessary--visuals very clear.

it is not really

i like to get you

good

i'll have to try that!

i want to tay it

i'll try this right now!!

amazin!

Sweet! it works :)

Hehe! Little Magic! will try at home today and make my family wonder how!

^^cool

cool

Neat!

Neat AND cool! Gotta try this at school tomorrow!

cool.. after i have seen this i had to try it.. my mom was wondering how this could be.. dont burn up your fingers , son ..^^

wow its really amezing................

thats a pretty neat trick uve got there
i think i´ll have to try that some time soon....

so short of violating every matchbox i can find,is there another way to do this?

it even works with cheap(often free) matchbook strikers

wil this work?

Beautiful & simple to do. any tips on the yellow stains on my fingers? rated A+

Some things to help with that would be to turn on the cold water, don't burn the striker all the way, the paper leaves a different residue on the surface and contributes to the yellow stains but most importantly, try to use a 'unused' or new striker, used ones have a little leftover residue from the match heads that were struck on it. Hope that helps.

it works, too bad it doesn't last long :S

ill try dat out it looks cool!

The trick worked fine, but left my figers smelling terrible for the rest of the day, with no way of getting rid of the smell. I tried.

same for me:
your finger smell like stanans balls!

lol

It should also glow in the darkness! That we did in my childhood.

Grew up in Pripyat? lol

dats #$%@in mad im gona do dat ri nw as soon as i gt ou of me bed

spell check much budd? lol j/k

i wonder if you did that six times then maybe
your fingers will really smoke

fun.

OMG

it just needs some spontanius flame burst and then it will be complete.

Wow very sad Ive known this little trick since
the 3rd grade Homie!!

that was awsome just tried it it works

you can scare people with that trick dat go so hard

good!!!!

now u can tell bitches that u r on fire n rub ur fingers together? and they lay u right then and their.Believe me ive ran the fantasy in my head a million times n it always leads to butt:D

i tried that but it didnt work for me :-( . is it only a certain type of scratchy thing that works??

would it be possible to save the powder in a plastic baggy for later? i want to use this at school but cant burn nuthin there.

If you could wipe the residue onto a plastic bag and then zip it shut, you could possibly save it. Not 100% sure though, worth a try.

im a magician and this is very useful for many things!

It will also glow in the dark!! - tried this one years ago when i was a kid - Oh and it stinks like hell too.

got to try

no powder when i burned the striker??

did you make shore:
1. the striking paper was ponting to the inside...
2. that your tap is the same material as shown on the video...

ps. if you still dont get it, go to my video about this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oK21rDXa-bc&feature=channel_page

yah i did it exactly like him

I nearly gave my grandad a heart attack

If you cant find out how to do it,
go to this site:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oK21rDXa-bc&feature=channel_page
I hafe done a Full tutorial!

ps. please dont rate my video but this video!

Cool, but I can't help wondering if he's got to much time to kill. I know I know, I did watch it... :-)

its so cool to do, but your fingers smell after..

cool useless trick to impress ppl...i wonder what the chemistry of this effect is

Loaf and his Fleas HOTTER Now!!!!!!!!heh heh get it "HOTTER"!?!

ah 'breath deep', you'll love it.

The smoke and the powder in your fingers is poisonous, probably worse than cigarette smoke. The yellowing of the fingers after doing this trick is a chemical burn. If you want more info, simply google "smoking fingers toxic'. Curiosity killed the cat.

dude nice! i did it and its too funny ... i love this!! my fingers smoked!:D

doesn't work

Cool trick...hey what is that wicked song you have playing to your video~! you happen to know the name?!

some people have too much time on their hands.

this is pointless and technically gay when you can just get some charcoal 1 briqueete and rub you hand on it then do the same thing

its tooo goood tnx..n da craziest comment was da satan's balls lol lol lol...loved da trick..n yea hands do stink..n i wud lyk to waste a little less matchboxes ne alternative :(

wow wonderful its working

that's cool! im def tryin it... 1day

sweet jesus

COOL! I'm going to entertain my little nephews with this one. Thanks.

your wasting water

youtube is better

billy mayes here with another fantastic product the #$%@tyslider station

are you aloud to say #$%@ on the internet

that doesnt look like smoke is more like dry ice

you cant touch dry ice with your bare skin it hurts

I wonder what would happen if you struck a match against your finger after the trick

that is wicked gotta try it cool party trick lol
Walk around with your fingers smoking

I don't even use matches anymore, so does anyone know a different way to do this, or do I have to buy a matchbox for one use?

this is simple and a cool trick i wanna try it now wanna show my family tat i have magic power hahaaa....

does it hurt? lmao! im a wuss :(

only if you use a cigarette lighter >.>

I can not explain in my words,It is as good as should be.

haa i showed my mate it and he thort it was cos i rubed my fingers together really fast

well, i decided to try this out, i used a cigarette lighter, my left thumb burned, i got a tiny piece of residue, which instnatly smoked when i smeared it. Ow.

It doesnt even look fake :D!! ill try this!!

Mwahaha!!!! I am Roy from FMA.Still in training.

Hmm... I wonder what happens when you snap with the residue. Should I dare to try it?

didnt work what did i do wrong did it just like the dude in the video

u didnt rub hard enough probably trust me ive been doin this trick for 5 years now im a part-time street magician i have mastered this trick and the guy that made this vid is an idiot usually it works if you burn the whole box

First of all does this contain any sulfur cause it could be poisinous not badly tho i tried it but i didnt get residue so i blamed it on not getting it paper thin i think it was to much leftover paper under it
p.s. and no it doesnt hurt at all unless ur stupid and wanna see if it will catch fire with a lighter...