Idiotic New Trend Alert
So here’s what you do if you are an idiot boy right now, trying to prove, fuck, I’m not even sure what exactly:
- Pour a bunch of salt on an ice-cube-sized area of your skin.
- Apply ice cube.
- Suffer substantial pain.
This leaves you with a nice area of your skin seriously damaged due to having its temperature suddenly decreased below freezing, in the same way it would get damaged if you went out in sub-zero temperatures without warm clothing.
Wait, isn’t there a word for this?
Oh, yes, frostbite.
Welcome to the developed world in the 21st century ladies and gentlemen, where kids are entertaining themselves by deliberately getting first or even second degree frostbite on purpose.
Fucking hell.
Incidentally, the short version of why this works is that as ice melts it draws thermal energy from its surroundings to break the bonds holding the ice crystals together. Adding salt lowers the melting point, so the ice turns to water much more rapidly, accelerating the rate at which heat is drawn from the surroundings. In effect, the ice becomes significantly colder where it contacts the salt and melts. See here for more (and for how you can use this to cool your beers rapidly make supercooled water).
