Someone in my science class told me that if you put salt on your skin, then put ice on it, it really hurts. I'm to afraid of doing it, so I was wondering if you guys have done it before?

nope just did it.

...the simplest urban legend ive read on this forum sicne i joined...but if he says it odesnt...its good enuf for me

A combination of Salt cold water and ice does get your beers frosty cold in under 2 minutes.

So now you know, and knowing is have the Battle..G..I...JOOOOOOEEEE!

hmmmmm.
Unfortunately I don't have any ice in my house right now. I think we'd better get a second opinion Sqratch

sometimes, when I pick up ice out of the freezer, it sticks to my skin cause it's so cold.

sometimes, when I get salt water on my skin, and it dries, it itches and leaves a dry splatch of salt on my arm that can pull my arm hairs.

I guess it could be explained by the fact that the salt would allow the ice to reach a colder than 0C temperature, maybe the heat capacity of the ice water is higher.
Or the heat conductivity of the melted water on your skin in contact with the ice is raised, therefore drawing more heat from your body faster.

I'll need to try it.

I remember doing it, holding it on for a long time, and yes it does. But then again, holding ice on your skin for long periods of time is unpleasant either way.

what ur friend felt was the ice on their room temperature skin. i just did it then.

Yes it does hurt, but it is worth it. Make a design out of the salt and then hold the ice on it untill your skin starts to bleed and you will have a cheap tatoo that stays for quite a while.

Is this true? I'll have to try it. The last time I wanted to get a beer cold fast, I stuck it in the ice bin in my freezer. While waiting for it, I got my usual ice water. So, I put the cup up to the automatic ice dispenser, wait for the ice, and next thing I know, there's beer coming out the dispenser. It ate my beer. I was not happy. And it was messy.



Sorry, back on topic.

HA!!! Mythbusters!

And it's more tingly than painfull

This is true, do it all the time.
about 10 to 15 minutes before my friend arrive I throw some cans in a coolbox fill it with cold water, salt and ice.
By the time the sit down and have made themself confortable the beer is ice cold, just right.
Offcourse don't forget to wash of the salt water before passing them around.



Ok could be, I learned it from my dad when I moved out of the house a couple of years back.

iam try for my self

the big thing in the cold beer case is not the salt, but the water itself. water conducts heat much better than air, so if you leave a can of beer in icewater, it will be colder faster than if you put it in the freezer because the air in the freezer is a poor conducter. salt or no salt, icewater works here.

on the flip side, in a bowl of water is also the quickest way bring things to room temperature so they can be cooked.

as for the ice and salt on skin thing...
the salt does play a big role here. it's just like salting the roads to de-ice them.
1. water conducts heat better than ice.
2. saltwater melts at a lower temperature
3. the higher the salinity, the lower the melting temperature.
4. when salt is applied to ice, it will liquefy slightly, though not raise above the freezing point.
5. zero degree water on your skin can cause frostbite.

the big thing here is that the addition of salt does not change the temperature at all. it just changes the melting point.

if i missed anything here, let me know.

Heh I thought it would hurt because something to do with cell diffusion...

Actualy salted icewater cools beer faster than non-salted icewater. It was on Myth Busters, most helpful myth busted by far.

Could be a combination of the two. The ice water is better at surrounding the cans with cold, and the salt makes the ice last longer? Hmm, need to go to the store. Must experiment.

I do remember my dad said it was the combi of the cold and the salt.
Salt seems to increase it or spread it faster.
Not a big science/chemistry buff so don't really know.

LOL, who cares. If it works, it's all good.

True that.
Try it, that trick saved many o'BBQ's for me and my friends.

adding salt to icewater will actually lower the temperature slightly, and it changes the specific heat. so i've no doubt that there will be some difference, but mostly it is that heat transfers through water way more efficiently than air.

that and more surface to surface action going on

It's in no way a myth. I watched my friend do it once, the spot on which the salt and ice were on turned purple (needless to say, it was very painful for him). It stayed like that for a very long while.

Though some of you say it doesn't work for you. What could he have done differently..?

now i see why you have a dexter avatar....

i dont know about beer part...wont know for a LOOONG time...

Lmao You nutter!

salt + bleeding area = pain
ice + time + skin = hypothermia

also
ice+time+skin=pain

I'm just remembering the little science experiment we did as kids. Float an ice cube in a glass of water. Position a piece of yarn so the end is laying on the ice cube. Sprinkle some salt on the ice cube and the yarn will 'stick' to the ice.

I have no clue WHY, but it was sorta cool for a kid to see.

Hm, I gotta try that.

I tried Creepy Steve's recommendation and it worked. Yaaaay!!!!!! Thank you, sweetie.

Me and my friend did this at his house, he said it worked, and it did, I held out my hand, he put a crap load of salt there, and then a ice cube, and he said to squeeze the cube... I did and it hurt, but it was nothing to serious just a little stinging sensation.

[font=Comic Sans Ms][color=#663366]

Oh dear

*LOL*

Damn it you made me scare my cats...

You're welcome hun.
Yes it's a live saver that one, or atleast a party saver.

I did it...and it kind of stung. I think it was more of the ice being cold...

hehe, my dad is a chemist...
*eyes the dry ice*

ouch! lol








alien

wtf? r u mad? why would someone want do burn or frostibite your own skin off? kinda creepy if you ask me... i wouldnt try that even thoe i like these kinds of experiments.
or maybe imma go make myself a cheap tattoo right now? maybe not.....

I recently have expirienced this....About 2 monthes ago...Anywayz can anyone help me do a science project about this?

Did you ever do that one about putting an ice cube on top of like a ketchup bottle or something, putting a wire over the ice and sprinkling salt over it, then being able to like slice the ice cube in half or something? O_o Maybe I'm totally wrong but I remember something like that.

I still can't believe that this many people are facinated with salt and ice. Must be new to the stuff or something? Ha-ha!

No.

Ok, well this is actually a way of self harming. And its a burn that you get rather than frost bite. Its also actually really dangerous as the ice numbs the skin making it impossible to be able to tell how much damage you are causing to the area, it's not until later that you actually know the effects. This can cause problems! As it is a burn it is also possible to have either 1st 2nd or 3rd degree burns from it if you leave the ice on long enough. This is something I don't recommend it as like i said before you don't realise how much damage you are doing until afterwards.
It happens because the salt and the melted ice combine to make a concentrated solution of brine this is what is in contact with the skin. They get into the skin and cause the tissue cells to swell killing many skin cells in the process the inflamed redness is the body repairing the damage. Or something like that anyway!
Hope this helps!

Fun with frost bite. Some of these people should have been around with Napolean on the march back from Moscow.

well apparently salt lowers the temperature of ice... and there would be moisture on the ice cube... when you put the yarn on it, the yarn absorbs moisture and is in contact with the ice cube... then the salt re-freezes said moisture and theyre "attached".

^this is just my own theory, it could very well be wrong^

i tried it on the inside of my arm. it stung a little but it didnt go purple... there was just a red square where the ice had been. i only put the ice on for a minute and not much salt so that may be the problem.



...5 mins later: i have a red mark almost resembling a bruise it was a bad idea

Sounds very logical to me. As good an explanation as any, I think you meant however that the ice refreezes the moisture the salt generated if left there long enough

First post here, go easy on me! Plus I'm trying to recover all my knowledge from general science classes (a long time ago). Please forgive me if I botch some basic terms or scientific concepts.

As I remember it, salt makes ice melt faster. Why? Ice is crystalline water. Remove heat from liquid water, and it spontaneously rearranges itself (on a molecular level) into regular 3-dimensional patterns we call crystals. Ice, snow, it's all water in crystalline form.

Now, when salt goes into solution (dissolves) it separates into charged particles known as ions, specifically Na+ and Cl- (not that that's important). Anyway, these ions physically interfere with the nice neat crystalline arrangement of frozen water, and so said water reverts back to its liquid state.

But remember we said that you must remove heat from liquid water to make it turn to ice? Well, the opposite is also true; going back to the liquid state, the water must take in heat, and it does so by drawing heat from its immediate environment. In the example above, it would be from the person's skin. So the skin freezes much faster than if you put ice without the salt. The result is a "cold burn", the opposite of a heat-induced burn.

Old timers such as myself remember manual ice cream makers where you mixed crushed ice and salt to produce the cold (technically, removed the heat) needed to make the milk freeze.

This looks like a great forum, I'm going to poke around a bit more.

i ate a mix of salt icecream vinegar and ketchup once 4 a tenner

not an experiance im willin to repeat

It's called an ice-burn. At least thats what I've heard it called. People at my school use to self-inflict the ice-burns for the fun of it. I never did though. Thought it was one of those "cool" things that are actually really stupid. I'm not talking about you guys in this forum who tried it. Haha. I mean those kids at school who try to act cool with the biggest red marks.