Well, this was the weekend where Younger and Car-man were attempting to burn down the house...err...garage. They spent part of their Sunday burning 20 swatches of fire retardant children's pajama fabric. Ten had been washed 20 times with detergent only and dried. The other ten had been washed 20 times with detergent and liquid fabric softener and dried with a dryer sheet (so there was a double application of fabric softener).
She was testing with the theory that application of fabric softener would reduce the efficacy of the fire retardant fabric. Why did she have this theory? Well, maybe because all the bottles/boxes of softener tell you NOT to use fabric softener on children's fireproof pajamas.
Oh. And for the record...I'm a bad mother. I always used softener on their pajamas.
Anyhoo...interesting results. Using the burn standards from the Federal statutes...you measure the highest burn peak on each fabric swatch...the fabric WITH the softener burned less than the fabric without softener. Yup, she got results OPPOSITE what the label on the boxes say. Oh. And maybe you should know that when she researched this issue, she discovered that the Federal Government has never actually tested whether fabric softener actually affects flame retardants.
Car-man said that the fabric with softener stayed flat as it burned. The unsoftened fabric curled in on itself appearing to feed the fire.
Now I'm not advising you to use softener on your kids' pajamas, I'm just saying...maybe the stupid government should actually test this stuff, eh?Oh. And? This totally justifies my bad mothering.
It's a "bounce" house. (har har)
P.S. I dedicate this blog to Tonkelu and the Blogess because they are the ones who first mentioned the possibility of including softener in the science project.
7 comments:
It's not even been officially tested?! Bizarre
I like to assume my kids will be safe in the event of this because, half the time, I forget to toss a dryer sheet in. I'm just THAT eager to get laundry done!
Your kid probaby did more testing than anyone else in the world on this subject.
I see a Nobel Prize in your future.
Burning stuff is just good, Old Fashioned fun.
Try this one. The effects of Canola oil in a Campfire.
Yes. It's as Awesome as it sounds.
Well hot damn.
I do wish I could've participated in the burning. It's such fun to burn stuff.
I wonder if Youngest could be published? That would be awesome! You should seriously look into that.
I loved this experiment. I think I was in 5th or 6th grade. Believe I won an award too... of course the next year the scaled back the parent participation abilities.
So I can still use my dryer sheets? Cool.
I recommend sprinkling ammonium perchlorate and antimony trisulfide on the fabric first. Add in aluminum flake or powder for a nice glittery effect (of course, she might need a BATFE high explosives permit to purchase this stuff...but it would be pretty!)
I love the 4th of july...
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