Talk:Stainless steel soap

Deleted text
The following text deleted:


 * "Chemically, the particles responsible for the smell aren't removed, they react with the ions present in the steel, changing them to a form that is undetectable, or not pungent to the human smell receptors."

on the basis:
 * no experimental evidence or plausible chemical mechanism that smell 'particles' are changed by steel
 * steel 'ions' - metal ions are static positive ions in a sea of electrons ; there is not evidence that metal ions react in the way described
 * no evidence of chemical reactions that take place at the surface of stainless steel - and if they did a film of compound would form, reducing the supposed activity of the steel. Stainless steel, by its nature, doesn't tarnish.

Paraffinbrain 12:56, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Test it yourself on garlic
The "stainless steel garlic effect" is very odd. After chopping garlic, your fingers are covered with odorous grease, and scrubbing with dish-detergent does not eliminate the odor. However, if you rub your fingers on wet stainless steel, the odor greatly reduces. Try it yourself. (Also try first rubbing your fingers on many other wet surfaces to compare the effect.)

The Face Test
Another experiment you can try yourself is the "face test". Wet your face with water, then "wash" your face with the rounded bottom of a stainless steel spoon. After that, simply wipe your face dry. The effect of this is a pronounced decrease in the amount of oil on the skin, and a unique smoothness that no soap or face wash has ever given my skin, and the smoothing/softening effect lasts for hours afterward. I tried this after learning of the odor removing/reducing property S.S. possesses. I do this every day; as someone with naturally oily skin, the prospect of removing oil from my face without using any drying soaps has huge advantages. I have seen no other mention of this anywhere on the internet, but it seems that there would be commercial applications for a soapless oil removal method. If you don't believe it's for real, try it out. You'll do it every day too, once you feel your skin. 66.176.173.107 (talk) 08:59, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

But doesn't this mean that stainless steel forks and spoons would have a large effect on the flavor of certain foods?!! --Wjbeaty 19:54, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Stainless steel DOES greatly affect the flavor of foods to the naturally sensitive or trained pallet, this is why professional taste-testers such as John Harrison who works for "Dreyer's Grand Ice Cream" also known as "Edy's Grand Ice Cream" (They use different names for the same product depending on where in the US you purchase it so people don't get it confused with "Breyers" a totally different brand of ice cream sold by another company.) use GOLD-plated spoons...a totally non-reactive metal. Doing so completely eliminates the "metallic taste" and "flavor-contradicting" properties of the stainless steel that are commonly detected by some people known as "supertasters" who have a genetic predisposition for a greater sense of taste. --Rpm2004 (talk) 08:22, 10 March 2013 (UTC)


 * I think the stainless steel soaps work in conjunction with rinsing water, as they help rub the odors off. For example, after my hands get smelly with onion, it helps to rub them on a stainless steel sink, while water is running over them.  It won't do much at all to simply rub them over the steel. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Moeburn (talk • contribs) 21:40, 9 December 2006 (UTC).

Image?
Hi. Do you need an image? I just took one. When possible I will try to upload it. Thanks. ~ A H  1 (TCU) 17:54, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Hi. I just added the image to the article. Thanks. ~ A H  1 (TCU) 22:49, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Nice, thanks! Sancho 17:47, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Article is biased
The article was apparently written by someone who has never used a stainless steel soap, because they do work. Indeed, there are no formal studies on the mechanism, but this doesn't mean that the effect doesn't exist, or that there are no plausible explanations. Stainless steel consists of mainly iron and chromium, and has a thin layer of chromium (III) oxide on it. Metal oxides are Lewis acids and readily catalyze oxidations. Iron and chromium oxides are well-known oxidation catalysts, effective for industrial-scale oxidation of odorous reduced sulfur compounds. See, for example, Example 1 in U.S. Patent 6,083,471. Another plausible explanation is that a thin layer of grease, containing the odorous compounds, is rubbed off mechanically onto the rough brushed steel surface. --Vuo (talk) 09:37, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Hi. I've used some of your information in the article. Thanks. ~ A H  1 (TCU) 12:38, 8 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Hi, I agree with you that they do work but you said it yourself "Indeed, there are no formal studies on the mechanism". This is an online encyclopædia not a discussion board. Empirical, not anecdotal evidence is needed to prove the validity of any claim. Until such is provided, the article must stay as it is, an acknowledgement of it's existence and purported claims, without endorsement or confirmation of such claims, to do so would be biased. But as it stands, currently it isn't.--Rpm2004 (talk) 08:24, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

eHow link
I just tried to add an external link to the article but apparently eHow is on the spam blacklist. I think the page in question (www.ehow.com/how-does_4596335_stainless-steel-remove-odors.html) is fairly useful, informative and comprehensive, though. I don't know how to best solve this issue -- perhaps temporarily removing eHow from the spam blacklist, editing the article and re-adding it to the blacklist, since I believe I heard recently that edits that do not add new blocked links are allowed, so that wouldn't pose a problem for future editors. I'll try to find a link for this.

By the way, the spam blacklist also blocks edits in the Talk namespace, which is terrible since editors can't point to links if they come to the talk page to discuss the issue, unless they know a trick since the one I've used above. That should be addressed somewhere -- what can I do about it? --Waldir talk 11:19, 12 October 2009 (UTC)


 * I did some research, and after reading MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist/archives/October 2008 I found the correct way to handle this case: I'll request the whitelisting of this specific domain. Regarding my second question, I posed it here. --Waldir talk 11:58, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Why it is mentioned in the article?
Stainless steel consists of mainly iron and chromium, and contains a thin layer of chromium (III) oxide on its surface. Metal oxides are Lewis acids and readily catalyze oxidations. Iron and chromium oxides can be used as oxidation catalysts, effective for industrial-scale oxidation of odorous reduced sulfur compounds at a temperature of 180 C. For this to occur to begin with, the compounds must adsorb on the metal oxide surface. Chromium(III) may also act as an adsorbent only.

Obviously "Stainless steel soap" is not used in temperature of 180 C etc. Bulwersator (talk) 20:01, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

rcseng mention of stainless steel soap
this website, the Royal College of Surgeons of England has this excerpt, by Kaori Futaba, Douglas M Bowley Department of Colorectal Surgery, Heart of England NHS FoundationTrust, Birmingham,UK

Stainless steel soap keeps hands fresh
Dirty procedures, such as manual evacuation or laparotomy for faecal peritonitis,

can leave an unpleasant odour on the hands that can persist for days despite repeated washes.

Double gloving may reduce residual odour but is less than completely effective.

Stainless steel soap (DKBHousehold UK Ltd, Hampshire, UK) can help to eliminate the odour.

Just rub the stainless steel soap between hands under running water for approximately 20s

after the procedure; it is simple but effective.

--Longpinkytoes (talk) 00:26, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

Work needed
I don't know if anyone else is watching this page, but I think it needs to be severely cut. All cited sources are either unreliable (blogs, HuffPost) or not about the subject at all (articles on the chemistry of stainless steel). The one potentially reliable cited reference is the NPR piece, and together with the Annals of the RCS piece mentioned above, we would have two RSes, just enough to survive a deletion discussion. But both of those are anecdotal, so pretty weak stuff. I'm going to cut this article down to a stub in the next few days unless anyone has a good argument otherwise, or can come up with one or two better sources that are actually about the "soap". WeirdNAnnoyed (talk) 16:08, 17 February 2024 (UTC)