Personal care products disrupt the human oxidation field

Posted by XzetaU8 6/29/2025

Personal care products disrupt the human oxidation field(www.science.org)

205 points | 154 commentspage 2

peanut_merchant 6/29/2025|

Not well versed in the field, what are the basic implications of this for health?

PaulHoule 6/29/2025||

In the 1970s there was a lot of talk about ‘healthful negative ions’ and a fad for negative ion generators even though many of those also generated hazardous ozone.

Hydroxyl ions are a significant kind of negative ion in the atmosphere and they’re known to be good because they react with and clean out pollutants like methane

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydroxyl_radical

https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/144358/detergent-li...

ryukoposting 6/29/2025|||

Here's some more research, since I have a tiny ozone generator in my fridge and I got worried:

Ozone concentrations as low as 70ppb are hazardous when you're exposed to it for several hours [1]. Estimates for Ozone's olfactory threshold aren't trustworthy, since you go nose-blind to it pretty quickly [2], but it seems like it's probably around 20-40ppb before olfactory fatigue sets in [3,4].

My takeaway is that Ozone generators for rooms/basements/etc are definitely a bad idea. The best-cited olfactory thresholds are all in the same order of magnitude as that 8-hour hazard threshold, and with nose-blindness being a significant factor, you just don't want to mess around with that.

Inside a fridge, though? As long as you don't actually smell any ozone when you open the fridge, and you don't just shove your head in the fridge for hours on end, I'd think you're probably fine.

[1]: https://ozonewatch.gsfc.nasa.gov/facts/SH.html [2]: https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-21/chapter-I/subchapter-H... [3]: https://www.cabidigitallibrary.org/doi/full/10.5555/19602703... [4]: https://spartanwatertreatment.com/ozone-safety/

thaumasiotes 6/29/2025||||

How can something be a negative ion generator without simultaneously being a positive ion generator?

gsf_emergency_2 6/29/2025|||

You're right but a lot of times the positive ion is far less reactive and/or more massive than the negative ion. Not so much for OH-. Charge is not the only thing that matters.

thaumasiotes 6/30/2025||

Well, in a similar way to how you can't generate a negative ion without simultaneously generating a positive ion... how do you use the negative ion in a reaction without simultaneously using the associated positive ion in the same reaction?

gsf_emergency_2 6/30/2025||

Here's one way

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ion-exchange_membrane

Another, that you might be interested in, but it's more confusing

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proton-exchange_membrane

gsf_emergency_2 6/30/2025||

See the figure

https://www.fuelcellstore.com/introduction-ion-exchange-memb...

Each ion of salt participates in a different reaction

giantg2 6/29/2025|||

rpnx 6/29/2025||

That isn't how chemistry works.

wizzwizz4 6/29/2025||

Isosaccharinic acid has the same chemical formula (C6H12O6) as glucose, which isn't acidic. However, they both have the same net charge.

xvedejas 6/29/2025||

When something is an acid, it dissociates into both a positive ion H+ and negative ion (rest of the molecule)

HA ⇌ H+ + A-

westurner 6/29/2025|||

FWIU hydrogen plasma in water for hydrolysis would produce OH Hydroxl radicals. (and H2O2, O3 (Ozone), and NO_x).

TIL that Hydroxyl ions bind to methane and thereby clean the air?

Air ioniser: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_ioniser :

> A 2018 review found that negative air ions are highly effective in removing particulate matter from air. [6]

But the Ozone. Ozone sanitizes and freshens, but is bad for the lungs at high concentrations.

whitexn--g28h 6/29/2025|||

The article does not come to any health conclusions, just studies the impact on indoor air chemistry.

GeoAtreides 6/29/2025||

if only there was a 'Discussion' section in the article, that goes over the basic implication of the study results... if only.

braaileb 6/29/2025||

Yeesh, who taught you to debase others.

metalman 6/29/2025||

wow!, we are emiting a potent biocidal gas strait through our skin!.....it explains so much! and ya, O³ is going to chemicaly break almost anything it touches, which will definitly yield some bad to have on you stuff if the precursor is just wrong. also , most definitly there is a wide diference in peoples indidual chemistry, so this phenominon will join many others in waiting for a more nuanced understanding of how human biochemistry works.

fiatjaf 6/29/2025||

This is impossible to read.

867-5309 6/29/2025||

limonene, linalool, "parfum" are the scourge of this age

datameta 6/29/2025|

But are great as part of a cannabis strain profile!

neuroelectron 6/29/2025||

[flagged]

burnt-resistor 6/29/2025|

That's far too often. I'm conserving water, the environment, money, and my OH field by only rolling around in the watering trough once a month. /s

alwa 6/29/2025||

Speak for yourself! The best defense against those sneaky Toxins is a good thick armor of crust… if you waste it on the trough, it’ll take months for you to build it back!

Remember personal care startup Mother Dirt, who briefly flirted with live “ammonia-oxidizing bacteria” as an alternative to soap?

https://www.fastcompany.com/90348480/how-this-bacteria-crawl...

ofcrpls 6/29/2025|||

This is like the Pollution Hypothesis for why Temperature gains due to Global warming trends lower in India due to higher particulate matter relative to the rest of the planet.

maipen 6/29/2025|||

The price of living in society is that we must also be considerate of those around us…

alwa 6/29/2025|||

If we’re all smelly, then none of us are smelly!

Only half-joking: I really do think people habituate quickly to fragrances and scent norms.

I’m hygenic but I (and the people around me) really do avoid scented personal care products. I really notice when I’m in regions or settings where kids schlump around in clouds of Axe Body Spray or Summer Strawberry Juicy Whatever Mist.

Or when an older person has become so habituated to their own perfume that they’ll tell you with a straight face they’re barely wearing any. Ma’am, I literally followed your scent trail to find you.

khalic 6/29/2025||

Some people are very sensitive to body odors, don’t generalize please

alwa 6/29/2025||

For sure. I’m among them—very sensitive both to human (and animal) odors and to fragrances. For me at least it tends to be fragrances—usually synthetic ones associated with body or room products—that people are able and willing to concentrate to an overwhelming intensity.

I certainly recognize that others’ sensitivities can go the other way, and I apologize for sounding dismissive toward the distress that can cause.

And perhaps we can share a sigh over people we’ve met who like to combine a pungent personal odor along with a pungent concentration of perfume or cologne…

khalic 6/30/2025||

Oh no apologies needed, but I appreciate it. Yes we can definitely share a sigh over that, followed by as much time as I can, holding my breath haha

Take care

HK-NC 6/29/2025|||

I genuinely havent washed properly in over a decade. I wash my armpits, genitals and asscrack usually daily with some all natural "soap" and thats it. No baths or showers. I get compliments on my skin daily and when I tell people my "skincare routine", followed by that I'm eating healthy, sweating daily through exercise, sleeping good and getting sunlight, they assume the not washing part is a joke because I "would stink if that was true" and I would have dreadlocks in my hair.

indus 6/29/2025|

Is soap included? I seldom use body soap during a shower. Probably once a quarter, when my SO threatens me with consequences.

I am not a researcher, but I have a simple evolutionary theory that soap was invented in the last few thousand years and became a mass-market product after the beginning of industrialization.

If we survived and evolved without the use of something in the last few million years, then why is that thing needed?

sjducb 6/29/2025||

Lots of plants can be used as soap with minimal processing (crush the plant in your hand while rubbing it on something). It’s likely that most of our ancestors used soap and we evolved to expect it. Just like we evolved to eat cooked or ground up food.

const_cast 7/1/2025|||

> If we survived and evolved without the use of something in the last few million years, then why is that thing needed?

Because we didn't. A lot of people died, actually. From germs. Before we knew about Germ Theory.

I see this same type of stuff when people talk about inductions or cesarean sections. "Well humans didn't need that before, so why do we need it now?" No actually... humans did need that before. Half of all infants died. Humans are unbelievably shit at giving birth.

Turns out, humans are bad at a lot of things. We die A LOT less now. Like... so much less that we can't even conceptualize how much less we're dying so then we start questioning if we need soap.

And, as a fun aside, the reason humans are so shit at giving birth is because of evolution. You ever wonder why seemingly ever other mammal is able to give birth and it's super chill but we just roll over and die in shocking numbers? Yeah, turns out evolving to be one two legs has disastrous consequences.

xeonmc 6/29/2025|||

Is your name Richard, by any chance?

pandarus 6/29/2025||

jesus