Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

Hi. I wanted to test the effects of toothpaste on skin or the effects of handsoaps on skin but I don't know a good skin substitute to use? I need to make it 9th grade pre Ap level. The time I have is around
2-5 days. I am not sure if I can even do the experiment. The other idea I had was spices improving the immune system but of course how can I test that. i have a feeling that these ideas are more lab related but I would rather try to do it at home considering the amount of time I have.. :(Sorry. Any suggestions would be very helpful or any sort of advice. Thank you.

Hi Mgard,

When you talk about the effects of toothpaste on skin or hand soaps on skin, I'm not sure exactly what effects your are interested in testing. If you are interested in testing toothpaste or hand soaps effects on the bacteria on skin/in the mouth, then I think rather than try to come up with a "skin substitute" you should plan to use bacteria grown on agar plates that you could then treat with the toothpaste or soap. Once you have all of your equipment (bacteria, agar plates, soap/toothpaste) the experiments would only take a few days, but you would have to order things from Carolina Biological, so that might take some time to get to you. However, if you chose a fairly benign bacteria, like the lab strain E. coli K12, then you could do all of your experiments at home. Basically, an experiment like that could be done in 2-5 days, but probably not in the NEXT 2-5 days, if that is when your project is due.

If however, you are interested in the effects of toothpaste/soap on skin moisture content (or some other variable), then I'm not really sure what to suggest to you. It would really depend on the exact feature of skin you want it to mimic, and I doubt you'd be able to find/develop something in the few days you say you have. I also have a hard time seeing how you could do any experiments on spices and the immune system in your home over the course of only a few days, but I hope other experts will chime in if they think I'm wrong. It is an interesting area of research, and there is a fair amount of support for the idea that curcumin (a compound in the spice turmeric) can be extremely beneficial for health.

I strongly recommend you spend some time looking through the Science Fair Project Ideas on our website (https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... llprojects). They all give you a timeline and a materials list, so hopefully you'll be able to find something that interests you and can be completed in the time and with the materials that you have available to you.

Hope this helps, and feel free to post again if you have more questions!
JMP