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Any scientist - Why does the metal soap work for fishy smells?

post #1 of 8
2/5/13 at 2:29am
Thread Starter 
Smoked salmon type fishy fingers, then washed with a stainless steel soap... all clean and non smelly

WHY?

I was just wondering if it was a useful or useable thing in a frag.
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post #2 of 8
2/5/13 at 5:30am
Not sure what you mean (so forgive me my ignorance). Do you mean that the soap was made of stainless steel (!) or that it was a soap used for cleaning stainless steel?

Fishy smells are caused by chemicals called "amines", and are often quite retentive on skin. They can be neutralised by using something acidic, so it could be that your "Stainless Steel soap" is slightly acidic
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post #3 of 8
2/5/13 at 5:55am
Thread Starter 
It is a soap shaped bar made of burnished satin stainless steel. Made to use as soap but has no soap, on or in, at all.
It really works incredibly and unbelievably well on oily fishy fingers that soap cannot remove the smell of completely.
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post #4 of 8
2/5/13 at 6:30am
OK. So I Googled "Stainless Steel Soap" and found a few articles about the phenomenon you are experiencing. Seems like the jury is still out as to how it works, and even if it works. I read several comments made by people who stated that for them the steel soap did not work. As it works for you mumsy, then we have to assume that it does work (at least for you). Now, how? It was agreed that there is some sort of chemical reaction going on between the chemicals causing the malodour (and this soap is supposed to work against onions and garlic too) and the metals in the soap. Stainless Steel is made up of mainly Iron and Chromium; it is the Chromium that protects the Iron from oxidising to form rust. It could be that there is a reaction between the Sulphur and Nitrogen containing molecules and the metals in the soap.

Sorry, that's as much as I could find, although I doubt if this phenomenon would be useful, or indeed useable, in Perfumery.
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post #5 of 8
2/5/13 at 8:10am
Thread Starter 
I shall try it out with onions and garlic then. It is a new gadget that I hadn't got around to using. I was very sceptical and shall do a scientific trial of my own sort with a few ponkers. I may try some EO's too.

The reason why your answer could be interesting is that if acidic factors neutralise the 'fishy' amines, then maybe there is a case for adding an alkali to a tincture that may contain similar molecules that one wishes to enhance.

I had vaguely looked it up on google too and could find no specific conclusion. I am surprised it does work at all.
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post #6 of 8
2/5/13 at 8:18am
Given the thread title, I just had to look (;
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post #7 of 8
2/5/13 at 10:58am
mumsy; unlikely to work. Acidic and alkaline describe polar molecules, most perfumery chemicals aren't that polar. Only effect of strong alkaline materials on Esters will be to produce the corresponding alcohols and acids.
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post #8 of 8
2/5/13 at 2:00pm
Thread Starter 
That first response reminded me of something I saw mentioned in an ambergris thread to add alkali to a tincture and I couldn't see why it would benefit it. It wasn't something that was actually linked by any thought except the cancelling out of another smell by acid led to the thought of the reverse. Interesting nonetheless.

The interest is also related to something that happened by accident when I was trying to make a huge stinker for my sons filthy London type project. Try as I might to mix a foul stench, I kept making nice and sometimes rather gentle smells when I didn't want to. I had wondered then about the ability of one aroma (set of molecules) to cancel another out.
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