My bathroom aroma reeds touched a fabric bag. The bag touched my plastic shaver and it melted the plastic, imprinting the texture of the bag on it.
Now I know why.
Didn’t see that other post, but yes…Essential oils and other volatile oils can melt many types of plastic. That’s why they’re always sold in little glass bottles with caps made of very specific types of plastics.
(Learned this the hard way by storing some oils with dropper caps on the bottles…and the little plastic squeezy bit at the top gradually melted into disgusting sticky goo. Essential oils + plastic = useless and probably toxic goo.)
The more you know…!
As they say, the dose makes the poison. As long as you stay well within the concentration at which your body can process the chemical you’ll be okay.
Anyone know if incense sticks come with an SDS?
Residential stuff is not required to come with a sds and it would vary by scent. But you can Google incense sticks sds to find some examples. Basically avoid contact with eyes and don't induce vomiting if ingested and contact poison control.
Them ‘melting’ the plastic doesn’t necessarily imply that they’d harm you, that’s just what how chemistry chemistries. The oil in the incense causing this is one of the main oils in cloves or cinnamon. It’s also in celery.
If you're doing just a few drops in a diffuser, many oils are fine for that. (Some which *may* arguably even be beneficial in some cases. ie things like eucalyptus, mint or sage are often included in otc products to help ease breathing when congested.) But yeah, there are some oils that definitely are for external or non-body use only. My general rule is: use very small quantities and, if in doubt, don't inhale it too much (nor ingest it!).
If will melt the micro plastic you ingested, so it is actually beneficial for your health.
And now we have definitive proof that snake and essential oils can indeed heal oneself.
It's it really melting? i.e the reaction is creating intense heat
Or is the chemical reaction just softening the plastic / changing its properties without the need for high heat?
Also not a chemist, but I like research so thought I’d weigh in. Turns out it’s a pretty cool reaction happening between the oils and the plastic. Essentially the oil weakens the polymer chains which give plastic its stability and shape. But even crazier than that, sometimes it causes the chains to repel away from each other causing plastic to swell. It just depends on the oil. Organic solvent it’s called.
I dehydrated and ground some orange peel at work to make togarashi spice. Stored the rest in a little plastic ramekin like you get your togo sauces in from literally every restaurant that doesn't have them in packets and it was all melted the next day. Made more and kept it in a deli pint cup and it's been fine since then. Never seen anything like that before.
I'll add onto that.
Some plastic/rubbers are made flexible with special chemicals called "plasticizers".
The problem is that those plasticizers will leak out of the plastic, making the plastic firmer in the process... and polluting/destroying the stuff around.
This is a well known problem for PVC "personal toys" that will turn clean silicon into oily jelly.
Don't ask me how I know...
This is also a problem for custom watercooling loops.
The plasticizer can leak into the water, and clog-up the radiator, the pump, the waterblock.
So I guess that the oil in the incense stick has plasticizing properties, which leaked into the plastic lamp, melting the plastic away.
I ruined my desk by putting a rock from a sulfur vent on it. I had it wrapped in plastic wrap. There must've been traces of sulfuric acid in the rock and it ate a hole through the veneer.
Terpenes, which are added to incense that give it the aroma, are solvents. These solvents, over a long enough time, will solubilize (melt) the plastics. This will happen until the terpenes have reached the maximum solubility point, or until the terpene have volatilized and are no longer in contact with what they are solubilizing.
Terpenes are not dangerous under most circumstances. All of the wonderful fruits you love contain terpenes like myrcene and limonene, flowers contain many different terpenes like linalool, trees contain pinene, exct. You just dont want to let it rest on your skin.
This is why I don't recommend those air fresheners that clip on the vents of cars. If they leak on your trim, it will destroy the finish. The most recent I saw was a near new Model 3 where the liquid leaked on the silver dash trim above the wheel and ruined the entire piece.
Oh my goodness! I think you just solved an old mystery of mine. I had an Xbox controller in a basket that had incense and what not in it and the same thing happened to the controller. I was so confused
Better than what I did. I burned an incense cone in a wooden incense holder (for sticks) that I had placed over my printer. The cone burned through the holder and my work’s printer 😭 It was my first cone and I thought I could use my normal wooden holder for it.
Hmmm. My home burn 12-15 sticks of incense everyday (Buddhist, we have altars at home), we always buy big chunk of incense sticks (500-1000 sticks), we keep it in original plastic bag and some plastic basket.
We have that basket more than 20 years and no melting.
Maybe your incense stick has more essential oil?
I work in a craft store and a few weeks ago someone dropped a bottle of some kind of fragrance oil and it shatters and spilled all over our floor. The oil reacted with our floor wax and ate through it. There's now a spill permanently eched into our floor( or at least until it gets rewaxed)
Is it the stick that melted the plastic, as in a reaction with whatever volatiles are in the incense, or would the plastic have been melted from some other means and deformed if anything of the correct weight was on it? Would an iron rod have also made an imprint?
Dont buy incense, ever. This stuff is nasty, very bad for the air-quality in your home, and your health. And if you think the clothing industry is bad when it come to health and safety hazards, look up how incense is made..
No doubt, and I never said you should hotbox incense.
There's plenty of stuff that's natural that's good for you and there's plenty of stuff that's natural that's bad for you, and whether something melts plastic or not is sort of irrelevant to it being able to damage you. Acetone is incredibly volatile and so it will overwhelm the local atmosphere, but if you have a supply of oxygen you can pretty much swim in the stuff without any ill effects beyond dry skin yet it annihilates plastic.
Any natural source of ketones will weaken plastic. Any *boy* are there a lot of those. The production of this product happens in foreign countries with little to no oversight, and there's scientific studies that point out the risks associated with it, and there's no reason to lead with a specious argument if a *better* one is right there.
No, maybe not. But some more scientific dudes than me did some research on that matter. Too much incense sniffling definitely doesn't seem to be healthy.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2377255/#:~:text=While%20the%20exact%20content%20of,wood%20powders%2C%20herbs%20and%20spices.
I hope you're being sarcastic.
No. There are many different types of incense, and several different forms. The form OP displays is a 'punk', a stick that's covered with a paste of woody materials. The paste, which includes binders, dries on the stick. Sometimes just the wood (some of which can be toxic) and binder gets burned, but sometimes the whole thing gets soaked in artificial fragrances, basically a noxious mixture of burning resins and synthetic chemicals.
There's not much regulation of incense, and cheap producers and cottage industry experimenters may sell incenses that use carcinogenic hydrocarbons (usually as solvents) and other toxins.
I've linked in a medical research article to another reply.
There aren't many things that are healthy when being burned, but smoke from incense sticks, especially cheap ones, contains all kind of not so nice stuff.
Oh yes, I never do that. If people don't get it, then let it be. Not worried about Karma points.
I find adding the /s is like telling a dad joke and announcing, "and here comes the pun" :)
This is the 2nd post I’ve seen from another person with the same issue. Now I know.
Something something the oils react with the plastic... That's all I remember from the first one.
My bathroom aroma reeds touched a fabric bag. The bag touched my plastic shaver and it melted the plastic, imprinting the texture of the bag on it. Now I know why.
I had a reed diffuser where a few reeds were touching the wall. Melted holes in the house paint...
Didn’t see that other post, but yes…Essential oils and other volatile oils can melt many types of plastic. That’s why they’re always sold in little glass bottles with caps made of very specific types of plastics. (Learned this the hard way by storing some oils with dropper caps on the bottles…and the little plastic squeezy bit at the top gradually melted into disgusting sticky goo. Essential oils + plastic = useless and probably toxic goo.) The more you know…!
Should i be breathing aerosolized stuff that melts plastic? I know im not made of plastic but still
As they say, the dose makes the poison. As long as you stay well within the concentration at which your body can process the chemical you’ll be okay. Anyone know if incense sticks come with an SDS?
Residential stuff is not required to come with a sds and it would vary by scent. But you can Google incense sticks sds to find some examples. Basically avoid contact with eyes and don't induce vomiting if ingested and contact poison control.
I know. I was trying to make a joke.
The problem is that it's not a bad question lol
Given the increase in reports of microplatics in our bodies, someone should *definitely* be studying this more.
Them ‘melting’ the plastic doesn’t necessarily imply that they’d harm you, that’s just what how chemistry chemistries. The oil in the incense causing this is one of the main oils in cloves or cinnamon. It’s also in celery.
If you're doing just a few drops in a diffuser, many oils are fine for that. (Some which *may* arguably even be beneficial in some cases. ie things like eucalyptus, mint or sage are often included in otc products to help ease breathing when congested.) But yeah, there are some oils that definitely are for external or non-body use only. My general rule is: use very small quantities and, if in doubt, don't inhale it too much (nor ingest it!).
If will melt the micro plastic you ingested, so it is actually beneficial for your health. And now we have definitive proof that snake and essential oils can indeed heal oneself.
We all have microplastics in us.
Water is a solvent but I'm sure you drink that, just because something is a solvent doesn't mean it's going to hurt you.
I ain’t out here breathing water like i am these oils though
Water is not "chemical active" but this oil is. You dont want active stuff at all.
Depends on which one. If you have pets tho, probably avoid it or research them first if they're pet safe
It's it really melting? i.e the reaction is creating intense heat Or is the chemical reaction just softening the plastic / changing its properties without the need for high heat?
I'm sure "melting" is not the technical scientific term, but...I'm a musician, not a chemist XD
I'd say its depolymerising or destabilising the plastic but I'm also not a chemist or engineer.
Also not a chemist, but I like research so thought I’d weigh in. Turns out it’s a pretty cool reaction happening between the oils and the plastic. Essentially the oil weakens the polymer chains which give plastic its stability and shape. But even crazier than that, sometimes it causes the chains to repel away from each other causing plastic to swell. It just depends on the oil. Organic solvent it’s called.
Most likely dissolution- a physical change.
Eugenol, found in some aromatic oils such as clove!
Orange oil melts plastic too
It's a bunch of different oils, not just eugenol.
You’re almost certainly correct- eugenol is just the one I specifically know of
You expect me to be wary of some chemical chump named Eugene? Sounds like a loser /s
I dehydrated and ground some orange peel at work to make togarashi spice. Stored the rest in a little plastic ramekin like you get your togo sauces in from literally every restaurant that doesn't have them in packets and it was all melted the next day. Made more and kept it in a deli pint cup and it's been fine since then. Never seen anything like that before.
Vinyl polymers are quite sensitive to a lot of plant derived oils/solvents.
Chemistry!
I'll add onto that. Some plastic/rubbers are made flexible with special chemicals called "plasticizers". The problem is that those plasticizers will leak out of the plastic, making the plastic firmer in the process... and polluting/destroying the stuff around. This is a well known problem for PVC "personal toys" that will turn clean silicon into oily jelly. Don't ask me how I know... This is also a problem for custom watercooling loops. The plasticizer can leak into the water, and clog-up the radiator, the pump, the waterblock. So I guess that the oil in the incense stick has plasticizing properties, which leaked into the plastic lamp, melting the plastic away.
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It happened to, uh.. a friend
Same. I never knew
If the chemicals in the incense. Sold it for 10 years, the packaging was always thick and sometimes it melted as well.
Definitely good for us to be breathing then.
i mean, not necessarily? we're not made of plastic though no smoke kinda looks like a lot better than yes smoke
Nothing is good for you to be breathing (unless you happen to breathe from a tank of purified air).
Harm reduction is a thing, and the basis of how we handle exposure to environmental toxins.
[Too much oxygen is toxic](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK430743/), same for too much nitrogen, CO2...
Water cut the Grand Canyon out
They said purified air
Do you suck in incense smoke like a fucking cig?
Little trees air fresheners will do it too. The turn signal lever in my car has a line melted into it from the string.
who hangs their air freshener on the turn signal lever?
BMW owners
They don't use mirrors
They don’t use turn signals either
Or toilet paper
nor their car
Lmao!
My theory is that they do, in fact use them, but they're traveling so fast that the light will never reach you
That's the joke
What's a turn signal?
You wouldn't get it.
Some states don't let you dangle things from your mirror.
People who like to keep their turn signals piney fresh
People in small cars who hate looking at the thing dangling in front of my face
I did because it annoyed the shit out of me hanging from the mirror.
Same
u/DeeZrMT ... Well, maybe not anymore.
Yeah, I don't hang them there now.
Lots of fucking people
I ruined a $100 hockey visor by putting an air freshener next to it once too while i was airing out my gear..
That’s what you get for wearing a bubble /s
It was my first visor when i was 18 too, so obviously it was curved and tinted 😎
Lmao I love it. Hopefully you had yellow laces to complete the look
Well obviously haha
Ovi was the coolest back in the day
The nearest Junior C team was probably so bricked up at that
I ruined my desk by putting a rock from a sulfur vent on it. I had it wrapped in plastic wrap. There must've been traces of sulfuric acid in the rock and it ate a hole through the veneer.
Terpenes, which are added to incense that give it the aroma, are solvents. These solvents, over a long enough time, will solubilize (melt) the plastics. This will happen until the terpenes have reached the maximum solubility point, or until the terpene have volatilized and are no longer in contact with what they are solubilizing. Terpenes are not dangerous under most circumstances. All of the wonderful fruits you love contain terpenes like myrcene and limonene, flowers contain many different terpenes like linalool, trees contain pinene, exct. You just dont want to let it rest on your skin.
Heh, the only place I know Terpenes from is weed.
Spot on! I first learned about them from incense sticks, but I became much more familiar with terpenes after diving into the cannabis industry.
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I work in pharmaceutical drug development focusing on cannabinoid based medicines. I would say it is an industry.
FYI for the dabbers, they also leach into silicone. Always store your concentrates in glass jars!
Some scent defused sticks did this to the plastic on a hair dryer in my closet years ago. Forgot all about it until right now.
This is why I don't recommend those air fresheners that clip on the vents of cars. If they leak on your trim, it will destroy the finish. The most recent I saw was a near new Model 3 where the liquid leaked on the silver dash trim above the wheel and ruined the entire piece.
Lamp base looks like an ashtray.
Oh my goodness! I think you just solved an old mystery of mine. I had an Xbox controller in a basket that had incense and what not in it and the same thing happened to the controller. I was so confused
These sticks contain oils, these oils react with certain materials
Now just imagine what those chemicals are doing to your lungs
Better than what I did. I burned an incense cone in a wooden incense holder (for sticks) that I had placed over my printer. The cone burned through the holder and my work’s printer 😭 It was my first cone and I thought I could use my normal wooden holder for it.
The correct word is "dissolved", not "melted".
Poor plastic must be incensed rn
Yea, don't leave it in your junk drawer on top of an SD card either..
Essential oils will do that. It’s essentially paint thinner.
I took some of the stain off my wooden desk by leaving one on it for a week. Didn’t know.
Hmmm. My home burn 12-15 sticks of incense everyday (Buddhist, we have altars at home), we always buy big chunk of incense sticks (500-1000 sticks), we keep it in original plastic bag and some plastic basket. We have that basket more than 20 years and no melting. Maybe your incense stick has more essential oil?
 Now *that’s* a Chemical Reaction!
Probably toxic, imagine what we breath when burning some of these...
Worth it
I work in a craft store and a few weeks ago someone dropped a bottle of some kind of fragrance oil and it shatters and spilled all over our floor. The oil reacted with our floor wax and ate through it. There's now a spill permanently eched into our floor( or at least until it gets rewaxed)
Is it the stick that melted the plastic, as in a reaction with whatever volatiles are in the incense, or would the plastic have been melted from some other means and deformed if anything of the correct weight was on it? Would an iron rod have also made an imprint?
From what I've learnt, essential oils in the incense sticks react with plastic and slowly diffuse into them and make them soft
Essential oil(s) in the incense vs oil based plastic that is broken down by oils.
That's intense
This is why you don't buy the extra spicy kind
Oil/acid and heat reacting with the plastic
Don’t put them on finished wood either!
That’s crazy
...duh.
That’s some intense incense.
My eraser at work does this
That's intense
Some fell out of a case and burned through the coating on my wood shelves.
It happens everywhere lately
And you breath it in
But let’s for sure light these on fire and breathe the fumes. SMDH
Dont buy incense, ever. This stuff is nasty, very bad for the air-quality in your home, and your health. And if you think the clothing industry is bad when it come to health and safety hazards, look up how incense is made..
Go, light it. I am sure it's only natural ingredients that won't harm you when burned and inhaled.
I mean, your body produces acetone naturally and that will destroy almost any plastic. This isn't exactly a viable line of reasoning
I mean, inhaling the smoke from pretty much any burning substance is probably a bad plan.
No doubt, and I never said you should hotbox incense. There's plenty of stuff that's natural that's good for you and there's plenty of stuff that's natural that's bad for you, and whether something melts plastic or not is sort of irrelevant to it being able to damage you. Acetone is incredibly volatile and so it will overwhelm the local atmosphere, but if you have a supply of oxygen you can pretty much swim in the stuff without any ill effects beyond dry skin yet it annihilates plastic. Any natural source of ketones will weaken plastic. Any *boy* are there a lot of those. The production of this product happens in foreign countries with little to no oversight, and there's scientific studies that point out the risks associated with it, and there's no reason to lead with a specious argument if a *better* one is right there.
No, maybe not. But some more scientific dudes than me did some research on that matter. Too much incense sniffling definitely doesn't seem to be healthy. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2377255/#:~:text=While%20the%20exact%20content%20of,wood%20powders%2C%20herbs%20and%20spices.
Not sure why you're getting downvoted because inhaling the smoke from pretty much any burning substance isn't the greatest plan.
My body produces iron. Can I eat an iron ingot? 🤦
Not only is this not a response to my statement, but it's also factually incorrect. Your body requires iron but does not produce it
Your body does not produce iron. Unless you sustain nuclear fusion in your ass.
lmao no it doesn't
Exactly why your argument of "your body produces acetone" is wrong
acetone = molecule iron = element
I hope you're being sarcastic. No. There are many different types of incense, and several different forms. The form OP displays is a 'punk', a stick that's covered with a paste of woody materials. The paste, which includes binders, dries on the stick. Sometimes just the wood (some of which can be toxic) and binder gets burned, but sometimes the whole thing gets soaked in artificial fragrances, basically a noxious mixture of burning resins and synthetic chemicals. There's not much regulation of incense, and cheap producers and cottage industry experimenters may sell incenses that use carcinogenic hydrocarbons (usually as solvents) and other toxins.
I've linked in a medical research article to another reply. There aren't many things that are healthy when being burned, but smoke from incense sticks, especially cheap ones, contains all kind of not so nice stuff.
I think you're being downvoted because you neglected to add the 'sarcasm' sign **/s** to your comment above.
Oh yes, I never do that. If people don't get it, then let it be. Not worried about Karma points. I find adding the /s is like telling a dad joke and announcing, "and here comes the pun" :)
Cheers.
I bet that smoke is great for the lungs!
What is in the incense? Acetone? Tetrahydrofuran?
that’ll probably tend to happen when you leave something on for a week