Howdy, I have a rather odd question

 

I recently found a vial of a purplish chemical in my house.

 

It is made up of water and some other chemical that is denser than water.

 

Out of boredom i started playing with it. When some is left out to dry, the water evaporates leaving a liquid that does not evaporate (i thought it might be oil, but it is not oil soluble (i put it in some cooking oil, nothing happened))

 

Again out of boredom i put a drop in some peach colored hair gel. The gel turned gray and became runny.

 

The chemical smells a little rancid.

 

I assume it is some kind of mack up because it appeared after a bunch of girls did their make up in my house.

Distill it and then run IR spectra analysis on it.

unfortunately i have no analytical machinary, any other ideas?

well its pretty hard to give you an answer to the question! You find a random cosmetic in your house and have played around with it for a while, with no actual qualitative results to speak of.

 

try some non chemical approaches, like finding out the brand, who left it, what it actually is...

That's friendly, well I have no means of qualitative analysis, it's in a non descript plastic vial, about twenty people could have left it in my house, and i was just hoping that someone would happen to know what it is, so i post here, sorry if it offended you

DarkSolar said in post #5 :

That's friendly, well I have no means of qualitative analysis, it's in a non descript plastic vial, about twenty people could have left it in my house, and i was just hoping that someone would happen to know what it is, so i post here, sorry if it offended you

 

lol, I believe you mistook greg's post. I don't think he was offended, or trying to be rude.

I can't really think of anything to help you analytically though without any kind of equipment. Maybe YT will have some suggestions

I could make a list of about 10 purple chems offf the top of my head that would have similar properties, everything from potassium permanganate to cobalt salts or phenothalein indicator.

IF it was make up of some sort though, it could be a kazillion and one different things a girl might own (that why we can`t understand them half the time!) J/K

perhaps it`s a washable hair dye? the sort they use to put colored streaks in hair at parties, or maybe even a pregnacy testing kit! LOL j/k again

to be honest, without actualy seeing the stuff myself, it would be impossible to give an answer to you beyond a good guess. Sorry!

 

edit: the logical thing to do, would be to ask one of them, or another female.

I found this

 

http://www.cosmecolor.com/discussion.html

 

It says this on ultramarines:

 

*Unstable in acid media.

*Must be used in an alkaline media above Ph of 7.2, (which soap is), or it will release hydrogen sulfide, a noxious odor and poisonous chemical.

*If you have ever mixed it with water or put it in lotion you will know what I mean - it smells worse than rotten eggs!! Other than the smell don't worry about it because it will take more than that used in coloring a product to be dangerous.

*Pink, rose, violet and blue.

 

Sounds something like it, esp. the stinkiness.

 

Ultramarine used to be made of ground up lapis lazuli rock, which is what a large part of the Sistine Chapel was painted with, at great cost. Now it is produces synthetically, though I think the process essentially replicates the process that produces the rock. The pigment is complicated anyhoo.

i wasnt offended, and wasnt trying to be offensive or rude. All i was saying is that theres no way we can give you an answer to the question you asked when all we have to go on are some vague descriptions. The cosmetics industry uses thousands of different chemicals (this particular vial will have a massive array of ingredients, not just a solitary compound) so unless you take it to you chemistry teacher (preferrably lecturer as universities have pretty neat analytical machines, particularly spectroscopy).

Nail polish remover.

Well it might be mascara remover, or at least something with Isopropyl Palmitate or Butylparaben in it, i only think this because mascara remover and other things with these two in them have similar effects as those that i am seeing

 

anyone know anything about those two chemicals?

take a look here, it`s a very usefull site and might have what you`re looking for, I use it regularly.

 

http://hpd.nlm.nih.gov/cgi-bin/household/list?tbl=TblChemicalsα=A

 

It`s a .Gov site too, so should be perfectly ok