Background: I shave my head daily. In the pursuit of an extremely close shave, I’ve found that preshave exfoliation is key. Sometimes I use a mechanical exfoliant (crushed walnut hulls). Sometimes I use a chemical exfoliant (2% salicylic acid). Both products are relatively expensive when purchased commercially. Grinding walnut hulls in my coffee grinder sounds like a way to ruin my coffee grinder, but how about making salicylic acid?
Question: is there a kitchen chemistry technique I could use to make salicylic acid from aspirin tabs (acetyl salicylic acid)? I would want my end product in the 1.5% to 2.5% range. Ideally I would have this mixture in a liquid soap base.
Disclaimer: You are not my chemist, I am not your laboratory assistant. I take full responsibility for my Erlenmeyer flasks. I’ll wear goggles.
Breaking up the o-acetyl-salycilic acid is easy(ish), it’s just a matter of adding water, enough amounts of acid or base and giving it time. The problem is that what you’d get that way is a mixture of water, acetic acid (or its salts), salycilic acid (or its salts), the excipients in the aspirin (which will vary depending on the specific brand and presentation of aspirin used) and whatever you used as a pH regulator which didn’t end up as “one of the above”.
Have you tried cocacola? (It’s not a joke question)
Oh well. I do not have a pH meter, and this sounds outa my league.
I once separated the codeine from the acetaminophen in Tylenol #4 tabs using temperature solubility differences between the two. That sort of kitchen chemistry I’m able to handle.
Coke as an exfoliant? I’ll have to look into this! Thanks!
What is wrong with the absolute classic of baking soda with a tiny bit of water? You need to sandblast your face? have successfully used it that way for years, and occasionally for my feet and elbows fine salt suspended in a bit of olive oil.
For this purpose, you don’t need a lot of precision, so pH test strips would be fine (and cheap and easy to find).
Off the top of my head, I’m not sure what you would want to use to titrate the pH. I think you can get hydrochloric acid (“muriatic acid”) in hardware stores. And I see that you can get sodium hydroxide (lye) online. If you’re not careful though, either of those can cause serious damage to yourself and your kitchen.
WHy not just buy salicylic acid? It’s not a controlled substance as far as I know. Sigma-Aldrich has multiple different varieties but it looks like 500g will set you back about $30 + ~$20 for shipping (shipping chemicals is never cheap). At 2% solution this should last you a very long time, unless you’ve got a very large pate.
And don’t worry about the fact it is a chemical supplier, we order flavorings and fragrances from them all of the time and many are even labeled Kosher.
Or some other wart remover type stuff is loaded with salicylic acid.
I think you can probably find some in pharmacies or veternarian sections of farm stores. It would be cheaper that trying to extract it from aspirin./
Crap. I never considered ordering it from Sigma.:smack::smack::smack::smack:
Ouch.
hehe. Thing is, BaldGuyz shave gel is so slippery/slick/clear that it slides right down no matter what. It is a wonderful product, but I can’t keep it outa my eyes.
Why bother trying to convert aspirin to salicylic acid? Aspirin on its own is a perfectly good exfoliant. Just crush up the tablets and mix to a paste with water.
Every time I attempt to purchase chemicals from an online source, they won’t sell it to me. I can’t set up an account unless I can demonstrate a professional affiliation with an academic institution or industrial interest. Is there any way around this? It’s not like I’m trying to buy a 50-gallon drum of piperidine; I just want aminoguanidine hydrochloride.
I have a buddy who is on faculty at a med school and does neurophysiology research. He has helped me out before. Also, as a business owner I have ordered things to my business where an account needed to be established and it’s pretty straight forward (tax I’d number, that kinda stuff).
