h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I just bought a metal egg-like shape from my local supermarket. If you use it to wash your hands after cutting garlic, onions or other smelly foodstuffs, the smell goes away. You have to use cold water and the thing never wears out (according to the package).

You use it like soap, but it's metal and doesn't appear to release, or be impregnated with, anything.

huh ?

R

Sounds very strange to me. I'll have to see if I can spot one of those and see exactly what it's made of.

Mind you, my mother always told me that if you've been handling anything smelly or have a container that has held something smelly (like fish) you should always use cold water first because hot water can 'set' the smell and make it harder to get rid off. I know this works on plates, etc., but I've never tried it on my hands. Maybe I should.

I got it in Sainsburys (am I allowed to say that ?). I've rtied a number of smelly foodstuffs on it and all smells are eradicated. I *love* gadgets.

It is actually an alien life form that comes from a cold water planet and loves to be fondled.
Oh and they derive their sustenance in an olfactory form which explains what happens to the smell.

It's actually a property of stainless steel, and the egg is just a clever marketing gimmick. In restaurants, cooks will often rub their hands on the sides of a stainless steel sink after handling garlic or onions, for the exact same purpose. How does it work? I have no idea, but anything stainless steel will have the same effect

Hmm... All the time I worked in a kitchen and no one ever told me that... I'll have to remember to try it next time I'm dicing onions.

I've just been digging around at the arse-end of the askh2g2 backlog (yes, bored at work), and found this, which I thought should be reinstated. I've always wanted to know how they work, too.

B

"I've just been digging around at the arse-end of the askh2g2"

well I hope you have something made of stainless steel handy!

Seriously though - as a metallurgist, I feel it's something I ought to know. We didn't do a lot of metal-organic interactions, funnily enough.

B

Perhaps we should run a trial of items.

I don't have a stainless steel sink, but I could try rubbing my hands on the colander under cold water!

Free radicals?

Don't metals have free-ish electrons (hence their ability to conduct electricity)

Maybe the organic nature of smelly stuff latches on to spare electrons.

What will you be teaching, B?

After handling ANY smelly food I always wash my hands under a running tap rubbing them on a stainless steel tablespoon. It always works. I was told about this by my Home Economics teacher back in 1978!

I saw something on telly about it once - probably good old Fred Dinage and his How! team.

Write to Jonny Ball on the Terry and Gaby show - he'll clear up the mystery of that there's no doubt!!

I will be teaching Chemistry.

Metallics do not have 'free electrons' as such, the electrons in metallic bonding are shared around the close-packed atomic nuclei in a self-propagating chain reaction type of thing.

My initial theory would be uptake by interstitial diffusion, but the diffusion rate in stainless steel is pretty negligible.

Must be the chromium...I don't know much about chromium...

B

chromiuim
mmmmm shiney

Now the way to keep your chrome shiny and free of finger marks is to rub it gently with a drop or two of baby oil.

*sits back to wait for the baby oil comments*

Ignore that last post of mine, it is stainless steel that you protect with baby oil

That is how they keep the worktops looking good in showrooms.

I'm wondering how someone found this out.

"I've got smelly hands. I know! I'll rub some stainless steel and see if that works!"

There must be other things that possess this property. My approach has always been to smother my paws with aftershave.

Well that's handy! Now we've got greasy, garlicky handmarks all over our once-shiney stainless steel gadget, we can use baby oil to buff it up again!

Incidentally, I found a fairly plusible (and fairly lengthy) explanation for the phenomena lurking in a newsgroup:
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=lang_en&ie=UTF-8&oe=utf-8&newwindow=1&safe=off&selm=3c32134a.692341945%40Newshost.comnet.co.nz&rnum=10

It's interesting how some things have properties you wouldn't expect. Did you know if you hit silly putty with a hammer it 'explodes' in powder form?