Champneys Detox Pads - Office Experiment!

The fallout from our internationally-acclaimed booklet on evidence hunting, There Goes the Science Bit, had left us with some interesting flotsam knocking about the office. Someone had kindly donated to us £20 worth of Champneys Detox Patches. These claim to:

draw out your body’s harmful toxins overnight. Repeat the treatment every night and by morning you will be able to see the results of the detox.

O RLY? I suspect that these pads contain nothing more than wood vinegar, which will turn an ugly brown colour when wet (HYPOTHESIS). This calls for a little experiment!

METHOD: Here’s Alice. She busted homeopaths prescribing water-remedies for malaria prevention. She’s awesome.

Alice will be our CONTROL. Here’s Ellen. She’ll be our TREATMENT GROUP. Is she look toxic? We’ll soon find out.

Ellen decided to use the patch on her foot. I expect that’s where all the heavy metals end up (arf! arf!).
Alice applies some lovely Thames tap water to the control pad. It’s the cleanest water in the world, you know.

This is what the pad looked like to begin with.

After a few minutes, the control patch was turning a funny colour. OMG toxins!

I decided to give the detox pad a little poke. Aware that my finger might contaminate the pad, I placed it back inside its protective cover. Here is my prodding action, so that you may replicate it.

That looks nasty! Let’s see what we ended up with.

Now, the important bit. How has our control fared against the treatment group? It’s time for Ellen to remove her detox pad (approx 6 1/2 hours early, according to instructions on the box).

Wow! Ellen = nasty. Her pad has changed colour too! More or less the same amount as our control pad. What can we learn from this?
CONCLUSION - One or more of the following may be true:

• Toxins make the pad turn brown.
• Water makes the pad turn brown.
• London tap water is full of toxins.
• Ellen is full of toxins (but slightly less so now)
• Ellen is full of London tap water.

We’re off to carry out more research. All we can recommend is not spending £20 on detox patches until we have definitive proof!

NEW! See what happens inside a detox pad: Champneys Detox Pad Dissection!

NEW! More slamming science in:
Champneys Detox Pads - the clinical trial

NEW! Even more science punkery in:
Scientific Study on Detox Pads

52 comments October 16th, 2007