Detox Baths Do NOT Remove Feces Through Your Feet

I ran across an ad for what may be the single lamest quack product I've seen. It's not the "worst" in that unlike some others it won't harm you. But the Ion Pure^TM Detox Foot Bath is so incredibly stupid and easy to disprove using simple chemistry that it gets into the Hall of Shame on the first ballot.

Here's a (hopefully) amusing and informative article about how easy it is to prove that the device is $129.99 worth of crap – pretty much the same substance that the Detox Bath is supposed to remove from your body. Think I'm exaggerating? Not one bit. Check it out on the Gear Elevation site:

Snippet from the Gear Elevation site. I don't know what this photo proves. One foot was dirtier than the other? Two different people, one dirty and one clean sharing a foot bath? At least it's 50% off, which is still 50% too much.

Woo hoo! It's the Ion Pure^TM Ionic Detox! And better still, it's the professional-grade. After all, who would want to soak their tootsies in something as ghastly as an amateur grade foot bath? No sir. If I'm going to have liquid fecal matter sucked from my anal region down through my legs to feet where it will be eliminated, nothing less than the professional-grade model will suffice. I may not get paid very much but I've still got standards. 

Liquid fecal matter? Who said anything about that? Gear Elevation doesn't specifically mention "liquid fecal matter" (the technical term for this is 'doodie water') or anything about feces at all, but check out this photo from the site and tell me what else they could possibly be hinting at?

This brown stuff is gonna come oozing out of your body by soaking your feet? OMG.

Yes, P.T. Barnum was right:

If Katlynn even exists and doesn't already know that she's been had, she will now. The nice folks at Gear Elevation have played a trick on all the Katlynns who have incinerated $129.99 to see a two-cent chemistry lesson, one that has nothing whatsoever to do with feet. It's called electrooxidation of iron. This is where the ickiness in the photo above comes from. More on that later.

Hydrated Iron Hydroxide is formed by a chemical reaction in a test tube. Photo: Arizona State University

First, where does all the iron come from? Remember that little black round thing in the bath in the first photo? Here's what it looks like when it's taken apart.  

You can see in a YouTube video that when the cover is taken off the device, it consists of a steel coil (steel is almost entirely iron) and two terminals where an electrical current can be applied. The rest is simple chemistry. 

The oxidation of iron by oxygen is promoted by the addition of an electric current (e-). The product is ferrous hydroxide, aka rust. 

The clever chaps (they are British) who made the video also prove that the Ion Pure^TM Ionic Detox is an ionically pure piece of s###. Here are some screenshots from the video.

1) Bowl of water. No feet. 2) Black thing (electrode) is added. 3) Current is turned on. Thirty seconds later the icky brown color is already apparent. 4) No one feels any better other than the shysters who have extracted 130 bucks so that people can watch rust form in a foot bath.

So, the electric current promotes the formation, but you would see the same reaction if you put a piece of steel in a bowl of water and sat there for 100,000 years. Believe it or not, this experiment has already been tried...

Mervyn, the last remaining dinosaur. Saved by detox. Image: Pixabay

So now you have: 1) A free lesson on electrochemistry, 2) the wisdom not to blow $130 on a thoroughly useless device 3) the ability to send that $130 to ACSH to help you and the rest of the world keep your feet clean. Just a suggestion.