How does activated charcoal work?
and today we're going to be talking about an ingredient
that's as old as fire and it's getting more popular as the word detox it's
activated charcoal you'll find activated charcoal and products like ,face
,cleansers ,face masks. Toothpaste and even supplements what is activated
charcoal what does it do and does it work here's the science. Charcoal is
carbon soot that's made from burning organic matter usually this is plants. but
anything that's biological and carbon base will work.
Activated charcoal is charcoal that's being treated to give
it a sponge like texture with, lots, and, lots, of holes. if you zoom into
activated charcoal it's very jaggy giving it a huge surface area some
scientists have estimated that one gram of activated ,charcoal which is this
much see. Has a surface area of about three thousand square meters.
This is about three Olympic swimming pools or seven
basketball courts or two hundred, and, thirty, car, park spaces. Activated
charcoal is used by a lot of chemical free kinds of companies so I thought I’d
make a side note to clarify that yes charcoal is actually, a chemical. It’s
made of carbon and it's on the periodic table right here.
If you also want a smart us molecule mug to annoy your
coworkers with or if you're looking for a gift for a friend who won't shut up
about science. Check out, these, lab muffin mugs. I have another post on the
myths about natural versus chemical beauty products which are linked in the
description.
So activated charcoal has this massive surface area but
what's so great about having so much space. If you zoom in to molecules at a
microscopic level you'll discover that everything is slightly sticky molecules
like to cling, on, to each other. That’s why water has surface tension and why
particles in solids and liquids don't spread out and turn it to gases unless
you put a lot of heat into them these sticky forces are, called, into,
molecular forces.
Which work a little bit like magnets everything is kind of a
little bit magnetic because activated charcoal has such a big surface area that
means there's tons of space for, substances, to stick to?
For example if you have a glass of water with dye and you
stir activate a charcoal in it once a die molecule bashes into a piece of
charcoal it's stuck and it's the same with an orange fizzy drink. The brand of
which I’m not going to say. This is massively sped up because if you've ever
tried filtering anything in real life you, know, it takes forever. I look like
a footballer or something tough footballer explains skin care.
The stuff smells really nasty it's like rotten eggs or
something i think it's because i bought the activated charcoal off eBay, which.
Now i know is not something you should do if you're intending to drink it.
It’s got a bouquet of fat. so rotten egg gas is hydrogen
sulfide and apparently if you can smell it it's already a toxic dose so I don't
,think ,I’m ,going to ,die. Per SE maybe if i hold my breath it won't be too bad.
It actually tastes okay it's kind of. Just sugary water. There’s not much of an
orange flavor any more.
but maybe that's just covered up by the thoughts. This was
definitely more salad yeah i think they're about the same sweetness. just that
this is missing all the sour flavor so it just ,tastes ,really ,bland and. watery
most of the fat smells gone or maybe my nose just just died the. Now you might
have heard that charcoal works like a magnet which makes you think that maybe
the charcoal might be able to drag out, dirt ,from ,deep ,inside paws.
but that's not actually how it works activated charcoal needs
to basically bash into the dirt for it to stick it's more like a big ball
covered in glue ,rather than a magnet. But a big ball covering glue isn't
really as catchy as like a magnet she. So why do people use activated charcoal
for detoxing well in medicine activated charcoal is only, really, used for
poisoning cases.
so this is when you want to soak up as much stuff as possible
from the stomach and gut so it doesn't absorb into your body and kill you
instead what you'll do is you end up. Dripping out the poison covered charcoal
and you go about the rest of your life not dead so since it's a common
treatment for soaking up actual toxins that, can kill you the logic.
something like the charcoal has some sort of special
attraction for toxins and so if you eat it normally then it also soaks up the
toxins from your body unfortunately that's not how it actually works because
science is kind of convenient and sometimes ,a ,bit ,of ,a ,dick. the thing is
activated charcoal doesn't really have a brain it's just a sticky sponge and
this sponge can't tell the difference between a good molecule and a bad
molecule.
it can't tell us something is a good nutrient that you want
to let absorb into your body or a poison that you want to suck out it just
soaks it up using these dispersion forces which is a type of inter molecular
force. Activated charcoal has a kind of inter molecular force that absolutely
everything else can stick to. Something called dispersion forces when two
substances come really close together their electrons move and they stick
together this happens with, every, type of substance.
So at a basic level everything is very sticky because
activated charcoal has such a huge surface area because of all the holes in it
there's tons of space, for, everything, to stick to. Anything that sticks to
charcoal more strongly than it sticks to water will be removed by the activated
charcoal this includes toxins, but, also, vitamins, and medications. Activated
charcoal will stick onto all of these and stop them from completely going into
your body this means you won't get the full benefit of, the, nutrients, or,
your medications.
And most of the time this is not what you want. If you've
been poisoned the nutrients are probably not so important right at that very
.second. But if you’re eating activated childhood is part of your regular diet
then it probably isn't making you any healthier. On the other hand in skin care
when you put activated charcoal on your face you generally don't apply it at
the same time as your beauty products which, have, your beneficial ingredients.
So it isn't as much of an issue now back to this idea of a
working a bit like a magnet the problem with this explanation is that
dispersion forces fade out very quickly as the two substances get further away
from each other.
As you might already know if you have magnets they stick
together when they're close but further apart they don't really feel each
other's attraction dispersion forces are even weaker than this with distance. They
fade out much faster than magnets and so for activated charcoal to stick to
something in trumpet it pretty much needs to be touching so it's better to
think of activated charcoal as a big bull covered in glue rather than a magnet.
This means it isn't going to draw out impurities from deep
inside your paws or toxins from your bloodstream or anything like that what
activated charcoal can potentially do is help soak up oil and dirt from the
surface of your skin. Sort of like a clay mask it might also be able to soak up
some oil from your paws as well and so it could suck this oil up and if this
oil has dirt in it it could draw out some dirt from your paws better than say a
normal cleanser.
But how long does the charcoal need to be on your skin for it
to actually do anything unfortunately there isn't any data available on this
it's also questionable whether it could do anything when it suspended in like a
gloppy mask. It won't be able to collide with the dirt on your skin and so it
might not actually be able to get rid of it I put two activated charcoal
skincare products into the orange drink.
A gel patch and a piece of sheet mask and waited five
minutes. You can see that the orange drink is still the same color you don't
see any of the fading that happened with, the plane activated charcoal. There
are other ingredients in these products that are good for hydrating your skin
but I’m pretty skeptical that the activated charcoal is actually doing much
because it just isn't able to make close contact with your skin.
So theoretically that's how activated charcoal could
potentially work in skincare activated charcoal is pretty cheap and it's pretty
harmless so i think it's a pretty good product to try on your skin. but I
wouldn't take an activated charcoal supplement regularly at the very best it's
a waste of money that could make you constipated at worst it can stop nutrients
and medications from getting absorbed into your body.
have you tried charcoal before what did you think let me know
in the comments if you have a skincare ingredient or a skincare product that
you want me to talk about next let me know as well. Thanks for sharing this
article with your friends!
