# Can eating steptic pencils turn your skin green?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-eating-steptic-pencils-turn-your-skin-green/170708>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [April 23, 2003, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-eating-steptic-pencils-turn-your-skin-green/170708 "2003-04-23T23:00:36Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Batsinma\_Belfry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ea5d25/32.png) [@Batsinma\_Belfry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Batsinma_Belfry)\
**Post date:** [April 23, 2003, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-eating-steptic-pencils-turn-your-skin-green/170708/1 "2003-04-23T23:00:36Z")

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There was a woman I knew growing up, that had green skin. I’d heard from someone else that she had developed a craving for steptic pencils/sticks as a child. I tasted of the one my dad had in his shaving kit, and can’t imagine someone snacking on them. And if they did, it seems green skin would be the least of their problems. Was somebody pulling my leg? If so, what could’ve caused the green skin?  
For you young’uns, a steptic pencil is a little white crayon type thing that men would use to stop the bleeding when they nicked themselves while shaving. I haven’t seen one in ages.

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**Author:** ![x-ray\_vision](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/x-ray_vision/32/351_2.png) [@x-ray\_vision](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/x-ray_vision)\
**Post date:** [April 23, 2003, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-eating-steptic-pencils-turn-your-skin-green/170708/2 "2003-04-23T23:11:24Z")

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Styptic pencil eating won’t turn your skin green, but various liver problems will.

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**Author:** ![gotpasswords](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c57346/32.png) [@gotpasswords](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gotpasswords)\
**Post date:** [April 23, 2003, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-eating-steptic-pencils-turn-your-skin-green/170708/3 "2003-04-23T23:32:16Z")

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In case anyone’s just dying to use a styptic instead of changing their razor blade, I’ve seen them at pet shops along with the dog nail clippers. (It’s not uncommon to get some bleeding when trimming black nails as you can’t see where the “quick” ends.

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**Author:** ![Batsinma\_Belfry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ea5d25/32.png) [@Batsinma\_Belfry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Batsinma_Belfry)\
**Post date:** [April 25, 2003, 5:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-eating-steptic-pencils-turn-your-skin-green/170708/4 "2003-04-25T05:31:08Z")

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Couldn’t the styptic pencils be the cause of the liver problem?