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Comment by ojosilva | Hacker News Reader

So does that mean these steel inox "soap bars" for getting the (cooking) smells off your hands actually work?

I told my girlfriend that they did not work... But maybe I was wrong, the OP talks about the catalytic effect of some metals reacting with the oils in your hand or food traces.

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Yes they work. As a chemist, sulfur compounds tend to bind quite tightly with metals. We actually have to look out for this with metal catalysts, as trace sulfur impurities can kill a reaction. It’s called “poisoning” which gives you an idea how tightly they bind.

I cut garlic with my chef's knive, for the added benefit of being able to use the large blade area of the knive to wash my hands with afterwards. Works really well to get the smell off and "I wash myself with a knive" has a pretty good ring to it.

I wonder what kind of degradation this might have over the sink metal (probably very minor, still...)

They've always worked for me. I was pretty surprised that rubbing a bit of metal was more effective than soap at getting smells off my hands.

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stainless_steel_soap: "The aim of the stainless steel soap is to then bind to the sulfur molecules, thus removing them and the associated smell from the hands. However, scientific evidence of the efficacy of these soaps appears lacking."

Yes they work, but I just rub my hands on the faucet as I'm washing my hands. That'll fix those onion fingers and save space in the kitchen.

It’s a question of what “actually work” means, because if your purpose is getting your hands clean, you’ll be doing a very bad job.

Yep, they work. You can also use a spoon.

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