With the start of the winter season and the arrival of bad weather, various tips for dealing with the rain and, above all, the wet windows: among these there is also the “toothpaste trick” which, if applied on mirrors of the car or motorbike, it would prevent raindrops from settling on the surface.
But it really works?
Indeed, doing a practice test and by applying a small amount of toothpaste to the mirror, then wiping off the excess, the water droplets appear slip away from the area where the product was placed. But why does this happen?
This happens because, even though the excess product is eliminated, there is still a residue left on the mirror very thin layer of toothpaste. Thanks to surfactants contained in the dental paste, the water is no longer able to form the annoying droplets that reduce visibility, but yes distributes in a way homogeneous throughout the surface of mirror into which the toothpaste is spread. This is because surfactants lower the voltage superficial of water, essential to be able to form droplets.
In short, it’s not about magic, but about pure chemistry! This trick, however, is extremely temporary: This only works as long as the thin layer of toothpaste actually remains on the mirror.
To make it really effective, toothpaste would go constantly reapplied on mirrors, or on any other surface that we don’t want to fog up. To consider, then, there is also the fact that toothpaste could create streaks or leave residueslimiting visibility especially at night.
The best solution, therefore, remains that of purchase specific productsspecially developed for this problem.
