Sunday, September 2nd, 2007...3:06 pm
Factoid 9: What Is The Chemistry Behind This?
I find Science just fascinating. But, every now and then, I just get confused. This particular factoid has always baffled me. This morning I decided that it was about time I gave my silver jewellery a polish. There are a number of adequate tarnish removers on the market these days, but I have always chosen not to use them. Why you may ask? Well, believe it or not, foundation make up does the job and it doesn’t leave a horrible solvent smell on your fingers!
Does anyone have any ideas as to how this happens? How incredibly odd to think that ladies would want to put anything that removed the tarnish from silver anywhere near their faces!
Some of my pupils and I have done a little bit of research which has produced no clues as yet. Does anyone have any ideas? Brian?
2 Comments
September 3rd, 2007 at 12:31 pm
My uneducated guess would be that foundation like numerous other types of make up contains powder.
Some of this powder may very well be in the form of hydrated magnesium silicate more commonly known as Talc. Talcs unusual monoclinic structure along with its perfect basal cleavage and non elastic folia gives it a very mild abrasive quality, which would be perfect for cleaning silverware.
Parabens such as Propylparaben (the propyl ester of p-hydroxybenzoic acid), Butylparaben (the butyl ester of p-hydroxybenzoic acid) and Ethylparaben (the ethyl ester of p-hydroxybenzoic acid) are commonly used in make up as well and the solvent like capabilities of these chemicals may in some way be involved in the cleaning process as well.
as I say its just guess work really, I would have to do a bit more research into it, but Tess the important question is, do I get a segment?
September 3rd, 2007 at 4:58 pm
Nice one Brian! Quite a complex answer there! Nearly worth a segment too! Bring on some more Trivial Pursuits!!
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