You’re cooped up at home, watching your favorite videos on the Infographics Show.
You love the ones where that guy does crazy stunts and challenges - you can’t believe
the things he gets up to!
You’re watching the one where he spends twenty-four hours in the bathtub, as his body
gets more and more wrinkled and his body gets more sore from lying against the hard edge
of the tub.
Fortunately, his body doesn’t suffer any real ill effects from the super-long bath,
aside from some oddly loose skin that will fit back into place perfectly once the body
dries out.
You’re bored without much to do at home, and you wonder - could you top this crazy
stunt?
You’re not going to spend two or more days in the bath, so you’re instead thinking
about what else you can take a bath in.
What would it be like to take a twenty-four hour bath in soda?
Would this sugary-fizzy substance have a worse effect on your skin, or would it be safe?
You’re about to find out!
You’ve got a large stockpile of your favorite cola at home, and an empty bathtub.
After pouring out most of your stash into the bathtub, your tub is filled near the top
with a brown, bubbling liquid that doesn’t look particularly inviting for bathing.
But you’re here in the name of science, and in you go.
When you first get in, you’re surprised by a few things.
The highly carbonated liquid has a bubbling, tingling sensation.
This is going to make it hard to get comfortable, because it’s like a million little pokes
every time a bubble bursts against your skin.
It’s not painful, but you can imagine this getting old very quickly.
The good news is, the soda isn’t going to stay carbonated forever, and when exposed
to the open air, it’ll eventually go flat.
No one likes flat soda, but it’ll make lying in this bath a lot more comfortable.
You’re glad you opened a few windows before doing this experiment, because these bottles
contain a lot of Co2 and you don’t want to inhale all that in a closed space.
The other thing that stands out is that the sugar content of this soda is very clear.
You can feel a sticky sensation on your skin when you lift your hand out of the tub, and
you imagine that when you get out of your extended soda bath, you’re going to need
another bath to get it all off!
When you dip your hand back in, it feels like the sugar is getting washed off, but you know
it’s just picking up a new layer from the soda bath.
You have to be careful of how you sit in the bath, because the more you sink into the tub,
the more you’re going to get that sticky feeling all over your body when you sit up.
You’ve got a long time ahead of you in this bathtub, and staying comfortable is going
to be a challenge.
You start to wonder what you’ve gotten into.
What do you really know about this substance you’ve volunteered to sit in for a day?
Coca-Cola is one of the most popular packaged beverages in the world, and most of its ingredients
are familiar - those we know, at least.
It’s one of the most closely-guarded secrets in the world, and its main ingredients are
carbonated water, sugar - either sucrose or high-fructose corn syrup, phosphoric acid,
and caramel color, plus natural flavorings.
Those natural flavorings are where the big mystery comes in, as the secret flavorings
are as tightly guarded as Kentucky Fried Chicken’s eleven herbs and spices.
There’s one flavoring you’re pretty sure isn’t in there anymore, though - cocaine,
which was originally included in small doses of extract from Coca leaves when the formula
was perfected in 1891.
There are many other colas, but most have a similar formula with slightly different
ingredients.
As you sit in the bath and watch your skin get stickier and try to turn pruney, you’re
more worried about another ingredient you see on the label - Phosphoric acid.
The idea of sitting in a formula that contains acid for twenty-four hours is more than a
little worrying - you’re starting to get visions of dissolving in the bath in your
head!
The good news is, while Phosphoric acid is a potent acid when in its pure form and can
cause burns on the skin or eye damage, it’s harmless when diluted.
When added to a soda or jam, it’s used to create a mild tangy flavor in food.
Back in the day of old-fashioned soda shops, sodas containing it were called phosphates.
Phosphoric acid is also used to remove rust, but you’re hoping it won’t have the same
effect on your skin!
You’ve been in the bathtub for several hours now, and you’re following the rules of the
original video - you can only complete the challenge if you stay in the bathtub for the
entire time without a break.
The good news is, you’re fully equipped with technology and your phone and computer
are nearby.
You can watch videos, order food, and keep busy.
But you can’t help but sneak a look at your hands and legs every once in a while.
This is much longer than the average bath, and you can definitely see your feet and hands
starting to get that loose texture that comes with sitting in the bath too long.
Does your skin look a little darker from the caramel color sinking into your skin?
You’re not sure, but you think you can see a slight difference.
It’ll be much clearer after another few hours.
The guy in the original video didn’t suffer any long-term physical problems from sitting
in the tub for a full day besides a sore back and some loose skin he had to be careful not
to pull on, but he made it pretty clear he wouldn’t push it much further.
There are risks to being constantly immersed in liquid with no break, as soldiers often
find out.
The most common injury from overexposure to water on the skin is called Trench Foot, for
soldiers who spend days on end walking through wet, marshy climates in combat.
With no break and no opportunity to take the boots out and air out their feet, their shoes
trap the water and cause swelling, poor blood supply, and a terrible odor from the feet.
If treated, the feet will return to normal within a few days.
But if the condition is allowed to progress, it can result in blisters, sores, fungal infection,
and even gangrene.
The good news is, this is most common when people are walking constantly in wet shoes.
All you have to do is lie here, and you don’t have to worry about any of that.
Normally, you’d be busy in the bathtub, scrubbing yourself clean and using soap and
shampoo.
But taking a bath in soda is enough of an experiment, and you don’t want to add more
substances to that and muddy the experiment.
Besides, you think scrubbing in sugary water confuses the point of a bath.
It’s been almost eight hours now, and the water is now almost completely flat.
That makes it a little more comfortable, but the sticky feeling on your skin is getting
more and more pronounced with each hour.
It feels like you’re coated in a thin, sticky slime of soda.
The caramel color is definitely starting to seep into your skin - it’s a potent color
that’s been used in the personal care industry for years as a way to dye hair.
But being immersed in it for hours on end makes you wonder if you’re going to wind
up with an uneven tan!
You wonder if anyone else has ever done this experiment.
You don’t have anything else to do while you wait for your soda tub quarantine to be
over, so you decide to look up other coca-cola baths.
You find a few videos of guys claiming to be doing coca-cola baths, but most of them
are obviously fake.
Your skin is starting to get loose and feel a little raw, and you really want to know
what a long-term stay in soda is going to do to organic matter.
You might not be able to find the answer in a video of someone doing the same challenge,
but you can find the next best thing - science experiments on food!
Your first hit is a video of an egg suspended in Coca-Cola for twenty-four hours, and what
you see is almost enough to make you jump up out of the bath and end your experiment
right now!
The video shows what the egg looks like after a night in the cola, and it’s disturbing.
The egg shell has completely dissolved, leaving a thin translucent membrane holding the white
and yolk.
Is that what’s going to happen to your skin?
You hope not, and you’re able to stay calm long enough to check whether this experiment
is the real thing.
Sure enough, it’s not - the entire thing is a hoax by someone using a plastic egg toy
to simulate the dissolved egg.
There’s no evidence that placing an egg in soda will dissolve its shell.
Phew!
You wipe the sweat off your forehead - but now you have sticky cola on your forehead,
ew.
The next experiment you look at is more reassuring.
It’s a test on whether a marinade of Coca-Cola will dissolve a piece of meat.
As you’re made of meat, this seems relevant!
It’s a long-standing urban legend that leaving a steak in a cola bath for forty-eight hours
will dissolve the meat entirely, but it’s just that - an urban legend.
In fact, the meat can be left in for several days without even starting to break down.
What it will do after only a day or so is start to tenderize the meat, making it a handy
marinade that adds a tasty and sweet overtone to the meat at your next barbecue.
Sounds like a recipe idea to note down - once you’re out of this soda bath.
It’s been a long day inside this cola bath, and you’ve managed to keep busy by reading
up on similar experiments, ordering food, and moving around just enough to keep your
body from getting too stiff in one position.
You’ve been taking your arms out of the bath frequently to do things, so they’re
not that much more pruney than your usual appearance after a bath.
They’re covered in a film of sticky soda sugar that gets dried after a short time outside
the bath, and then gets wet and slick again when you plunge them back in.
Your lower body is a different story, as it’s been in the tub this whole time.
Your skin has taken on a pale, flabby appearance, especially near your feet.
Your skin is loose, and easy to pull away from the body.
You have to be careful when you examine it - you don’t want to tear any away.
The clock is ticking down towards the twenty-four hour mark, and there’s one element of this
experiment that is wearing you down - staying up for twenty-four hours.
Whether in your apartment or in a bath of cola, not sleeping for twenty-four hours is
going to cause fatigue.
It becomes harder to stay focused and keep from drifting off, which is something you
definitely don’t want to happen - slipping under in the bathtub would be a very unpleasant
experience.
Not only is there the risk of drowning, but you don’t want to think about getting that
soda out of your hair.
You keep focused by moving around and watching a few more videos.
Almost there…
The alarm clock strikes, and it’s twenty-four hours.
Time to free yourself of your soda bathtub prison.
There’s just one problem - you’ve got to get up.
After sitting in a bathtub of a mildly corrosive substance for twenty-four hours, your body
is stiff and painful, and your skin is very sensitive, especially in the area below your
waist.
You move cautiously, inching your way up and being careful not to pull any muscles or tear
any skin.
As soon as you stand up and pull the plug, watching the soda go down the drain, you start
to feel better.
It’s time to wash off.
But that comfortable feeling doesn’t last long, as the normal water starts to wash all
the sugar off your skin.
Your skin is much more sensitive than normal, as the phosphoric acid in the soda has done
to you what it does to all meat - tenderized it.
You’ll want to be careful while washing yourself off, keeping the temperature moderate
and turning down the water pressure so it doesn’t feel like millions of little water
missiles are hitting you.
The slimy coating of sugar is washing away, and your skin is starting to return to its
normal feeling.
Well, almost normal.
Your skin will become tight again shortly, just as it does after any long bath, but it’s
going to take a couple of baths for the staining of the caramel color all over your body to
disappear - and you’re definitely not going to scrub it off now, as sensitive as your
skin is.
You get out of the shower, moving cautiously.
Your skin is tender and itchy, and you’re tempted to start scratching, but you know
that could tear the skin and cause bleeding or infection.
The best plan is to wear loose-fitting clothing and let your skin return to normal gradually.
This was definitely a less pleasant - and stickier - experience than sitting in water
for twenty-four hours, but it also won’t cause massive physical problems if you’re
in overall good skin health.
This experiment was a success - at least until you have to explain to your friends what happened
to your skin.
Want to see the experiment that kicked this off?
Check out “Don’t Leave Bathtub for 24 Hours”, or check out this video instead.
Thanks for watching, and we’ll see you next time!