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I'm doing a project on toothpastes to see which toothpastes are safer to use. So I tested Colgate Optic White and Crest 3D White toothpaste on pigskin and looked at it under a dissecting scope. I saw a bit of damage but I'm not sure if it's just the colour of the toothpaste, or if it's actually damage in the skin.
Is there any way I can stain the skin to make sure it's actually damaged? I need to verify my results but I'm not sure how to do it.
My teacher said that Methylene Blue will just turn the whole skin blue so we need to figure out a way it won't change the whole skin blue and will show us the damage.
Testing Methylene Blue on Pigskin
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Re: Testing Methylene Blue on Pigskin
When you say 'pigskin' I'm assuming you mean leather like what is used to make footballs. I don't see how leather can be used as a model for the human mouth to test the effects of toothpaste. Your results will just show the effects of toothpaste on leather.
I remember you were planning this project back in November 2015 and looking for a model of the human mouth. It was suggested that the best model would be cheek cells since that is what would be exposed to toothpaste in the mouth. But probably your school's rules prevent you from using any human cells--even your own.
If you want to test toothpaste on a component of skin, why don't you use gelatin which is mostly collagen, the same protein found in pig skin. Gelatin is not tanned like leather, however, so it is a little closer to natural skin.
As to what kind of 'damage' you could measure on gelatin, I don't know. The kinds of damage from toothpaste ingredients in the human mouth would mostly be found in the living cells. You could test for digestion of the gelatin which would convert it from a gel to a liquid.
If you want to try a different stain for the model protein you could get some food dyes and try dilute solutions of those (http://www.crscientific.com/article-5-minute-stain.html). They might work on proteins.
Sybee
I remember you were planning this project back in November 2015 and looking for a model of the human mouth. It was suggested that the best model would be cheek cells since that is what would be exposed to toothpaste in the mouth. But probably your school's rules prevent you from using any human cells--even your own.
If you want to test toothpaste on a component of skin, why don't you use gelatin which is mostly collagen, the same protein found in pig skin. Gelatin is not tanned like leather, however, so it is a little closer to natural skin.
As to what kind of 'damage' you could measure on gelatin, I don't know. The kinds of damage from toothpaste ingredients in the human mouth would mostly be found in the living cells. You could test for digestion of the gelatin which would convert it from a gel to a liquid.
If you want to try a different stain for the model protein you could get some food dyes and try dilute solutions of those (http://www.crscientific.com/article-5-minute-stain.html). They might work on proteins.
Sybee