# Why is greasy paper translucent?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-greasy-paper-translucent/61172>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [April 7, 2001, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-greasy-paper-translucent/61172 "2001-04-07T18:42:07Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Podkayne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/edb3f5/32.png) [@Podkayne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Podkayne)\
**Post date:** [April 7, 2001, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-greasy-paper-translucent/61172/1 "2001-04-07T18:42:07Z")

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Wet paper isn’t, but if you dribble some grease from your McWhatever on some paper, it can become nigh transparent.

They used buttered paper for windows back in the frontier days when it was impractical to obtain panes of glass. Very clever! Even waterproof, to some degree. Though you do have to worry about your windows going rancid.

Why do does it work?

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**Author:** ![Podkayne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/edb3f5/32.png) [@Podkayne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Podkayne)\
**Post date:** [April 7, 2001, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-greasy-paper-translucent/61172/2 "2001-04-07T19:15:53Z")

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Oh, for the love of Mike. I can’t _believe_ this. I did a search, found nothing (should have tried “oil” in addition to “greas”), then posted a question that I’ve been mulling over for _weeks_, then, right after starting a new thread, I found _exactly_ the same question, right down to the early American windows, in the [Wet Tshirts](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=66540) thread.

Mods, feel free to lock this thread.