Hygeine
moleculeoftheday | July 23, 2007Ammonium thioglycolate is the ammonium salt of thioglycolic acid. Having a thiol (R-SH), thioglycolic acid is a decent reducing agent, particularly of disulfide bonds (R-S-S-R').
Your hair is cross-linked by legion disulfide bonds; determining whether it's curly or straight. Thanks to some chemistry, you can rearrange that frizzy hair. You can reduce it with some thiol (in this case the less-stinky thioglycolate; complain all you want about the stink, but be glad nobody's using beta-mercaptoethanol, which would work just as well, at the cost of all your friends). Style it and oxidize it back…
moleculeoftheday | February 21, 2007Denatonium, sold as Bitrex, is among the most bitter compounds in the world. Why in the world would industry seek out such a thing? To put in things we don't want you to eat, silly.
I think it was developed to denature nonbeverage alcohol (to avoid having to pay alcohol tax, booze not intended for your mouth is made toxic or disgusting; Bitrex does mostly the latter), but it finds its way into loads of stuff (including, puzzlingly, hygeine products - most of which probably taste pretty bad on their own, no?). My favorite use for it is anti-nail biting polish. It takes a certain dedication to…