Molecules: You'd better learn to live with them.
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Category: Physical Science
Posted on: January 26, 2008 2:05 PM, by Molecule of the Day
The scientific tour de force doesn't stop there; they also give you lessons on deuterium oxide, fullerenes, and liquid crystals.
The deuterium oxide thing is puzzling - another cosmetics company purports to sell spritzers of D2O. It's almost enough to make you buy some just to stick in the NMR to see if they're for real.
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Comments
I'm confused how something can be purely one chirality and natural at the same time. I mean I know that there is no real definition of "natural" in this context of cosmetics, but I would think that there would be a lot of chemistry between the raw product and the final product with only one chiral form.
Posted by: Beth | January 26, 2008 4:48 PM
That was an amusing read. I feel for the suckers that shell out $50+ for 4 oz of lotion.
I especially like the part where pH balanced was equated to moisture balance. So a pH=7.2 solution is wetter than a pH=6.8 solution?
Posted by: Chemgeek | January 26, 2008 8:34 PM
Beth: Nature is extremely specific about the chirality of its chemicals. The proteins that make up all the working parts of life can exist as they are, or as their mirror image. But nature only (mostly) produces the "left handed" version of proteins.
And because the building blocks of cells are always oriented in a specific fashion, the chemistry they do is always going to give a product with one orientation. Because we are chiral creatures, we are able to sense the difference between right and left handed molecules. Take for example carvone; one version smells like spearmint, while its mirror image smells like the spice carraway. We can tell the difference because our noses are made of proteins and receptors of only one of the two mirror images.
And yeah, that cosmetics ad was total BS. =)
Posted by: Vince Noir | January 26, 2008 10:14 PM
"all molecules have 2 identical sides or shapes."
Like carbon dioxide: O=C=O
See the two oxygens on either side of the carbon? They're the same!
Posted by: Cody | January 26, 2008 11:51 PM
"always identified on the product label by either an L for the left side of the molecule or D for the right side"
"Bio-living matter contains an equal number of L and D molecules"
*facepalms*
Posted by: As You Lean | January 27, 2008 3:27 PM
look, the taget consumer group is the same as for Noka chocolate (which is a decent French-made brand Bonat that is re-melted and sold in fancy gift boxes at 2,000 % mark-up with lots of mysterious-sounding baloney).
Any sophisticated-sounding wa-wa is good enough for the purpose. Few years ago lyposomes and penta-water were all the rage. Now the words are like "eye-firming serum". Why not chiral D2O ?
Posted by: milkshake | January 28, 2008 2:11 PM