Scheele's Green made the news in Germany this year because a number of libraries put their books with green covers from that time away for safety until they had determined whether it's dangerous to handle them. The result was basically "don't lick the covers" and I think that's good advice for _any_ library book.
I can say with confidence I've never considered licking a book cover.... Though I could see toddlers inadvertently nomming on a book, I'd hope it's a children's section book and not an antique 🤔
@@bellablue5285 The worry was that handling those books could expose you to the arsenic either through skin contact or even just breathing in the dust. But apparently the colour is fixed well enough that no extra precautions are needed.
@rolfs2165 oh yeah no, I know, I have a couple lovely green hardcovers from a similar time period that I am very careful to make sure I wash my hands after handling (haven't tested them so I err on the side of caution). I would hope libraries wouldn't have to tell folks not to lick the books, but stranger things have happened I'm sure
As a parent who reads with their toddler, I must attest that -- while definitely good advice -- a certain subset of the human population just won't follow it...
Here's your regular reminder to never tip your paint brushes with your mouth, whether painting war gaming minis or landscapes. Wear protective gloves when working with solvents, and for the love of all things Open A Window!! Or have an extraction fan, or something! It's bad enough being a starving artist, don't add a health crisis to your list.
Most acrilics should be safe, but I had no clue people would put the brush in their mouth... It's covered in paint water... But never paint without ventilaton, it's safest to not paint around pets, and don't accidentally drink the paint water... Not recommended... Luckily I've never done that
@@alteria2714 If you're buying cheap craft paints, yes. Army Painter or Vallejo? Probably fine. GW? Who knows what they put in there. Golden: mmm cadmium. The best reds and yellows. Golden's So Flat range is pretty basic but fantastic coverage, in part due to using the more nasty pigments.
Oh, Scheele's green was bad for the middle-class residents too! Victorian homes were humid (it's England after all) resulting in fungal growth, and some of those fungi could metabolize arsenic into a gaseous form.
A read about an infant chewing on a bit peeling up near the floor, it died. Also someone's parrot getting sick? I know they're sensitive, canary in a coal mine and all that. But I think all those gaseous poisons lead to the belive that there was bad air and that's why they felt better at seaside health resorts
Ah, so that was the mechanism. I remember there was a period of debate with one of the major manufacturers insisting the arsenic in the wallpaper was incapable of poisoning the residents unless they ate it, but the mortality statistics showed otherwise.
Scishow are psychos who support torturing animals in mad Science experiments. That's what science is about, torturing animals, that's all science is. An alternative? So glad you asked : pour the medicine down the drain it's better for people to die as nature intended.
Some other pigments are worth mentioning: • Cobalt blue is still in use, though it contains no arsenic. • There is another chromium pigment, chromium oxide green, but this one is trivalent and relatively harmless. P.S. Hexavalent chromium is the reason why chrome plating is so heavily regulated.
@handledis lol...even when using non toxic gamblin paints and no solvents if i forget to vent my studio by opening the doors on either side to get a through flow of air i can assure you're assumption is correct.
@softwarerevolutions i had to force myself to not get into that for this reason. Basically no way to avoid some level of toxicity being around that much vapor.
Same. I wonder what the odorless turpenoid does conpared to the others. Also, I presume cadmium orange, red and yellow still have cadmium? and are the blues in prussian and ultramarine fairly safe? the trouble is that a lot of the most brilliant pigments come from metal oxides, which are oxides because they react easily to oxygen - which is abundant in and needed by our body.
Painter here, I've used or seen some of these pigments before and they really do pop. I haven't used it personally due to the labour involved in cleaning it up, but lead white has this beautiful, bright, clean, warm white that zinc and titanium white just don't quite match in oil paintings. Cadmium yellow is a favourite of mine and one I've used personally, and it really is something special. As long as you don't eat it, work in a ventilated environment, and wash it off if it gets on you, the risk really is pretty minimal. A lot of painters wear gloves and even masks for added protection.
The use of these pigments was very significant when they were introduced, as they would provide a tremendous vibrancy that couldn't be matched or surpassed until modern organic chemistry created numerous organic and organometallic compounds with far lower toxicity and comparable appearance. Even then, these pigments are usually less durable against environmental conditions, most notably by being less lightfast (they degrade when exposed to light, and especially the sun, over long time periods), while also tending to be transparent (strong color but doesn't thoroughly cover the background). Some examples: - Magenta - Pthalocyanine pigments (pthalo blue, pthalo green) - Arylide pigments (arylide yellow and diarylide yellow) - Pyrrole red (a really bright and perfect red) - Naphtol red (a bright red-orange) - Dioxazine violet (a very bright violet compound) - All modern fluorescent colors
My art studio still recommends flake (lead) white for advanced oil painters because nothing can quite match it for the reasons you describe. I started my oil painting journey about 5 years ago and have hesitated to make the jump, because I still get paint on my fingers - really, I should just give in and wear gloves - although I wash my hands thoroughly after an hour and a half when I take a break. We use cadmium yellow & red quite extensively, as we are taught to start with the 3 primaries & white to mix everything (or, for a more "European" style that's better for mixing cool colors than warm, alizarin crimson, medium yellow, prussian blue). Children's classes substitute something else for the cadmiums; I forget what.
@@ellenbryn I understand not wanting to wear gloves! I really dislike the feeling of having sweaty hands under the vinyl/nitrile, hence why the pigments/paints I tend to use tend to be on the lower end of risk. I only really wear gloves when I'm spraypainting due to an old bit of advice I received that I never fact-checked: In my teens I was told to never, ever get spraypaint dried under your nails because if you happened to be nearby a fresh bit of urban art and the police didn't like your style they could question you just for happening to have it on your hands, even if you weren't the person to do it!, though I've become considerably more lax about it over the years. I have no idea how grounded that bit of advice was, haha. Anyway, (a belated) congratulations on starting your oil painting journey!! It's really a wonderful medium. I'm happy for you. Do you ever post your work anywhere? I love checking out others' works, though admittedly I haven't been posting mine anywhere (social media feels so involved, like I'd have to make a whole to-do out of it. Maybe I'm just procrastinating for groundless reasons and it isn't so bad, lol. I've been meaning to get around to it, myself...)
I work in hazardous waste and paints are always fun to dispose of. Most of the time it's just oil based and flammable or water based and non flammable, but there's always the chance it can have fun additional stuff like chromium that makes it trickier to dispose of.
Anti-fouling paints used in ships are often lead compounds, including lead white (alkaline lead carbonate) and red oxide / red lead (lead tetroxide), both of which were mentioned in the video but not with this use case you mention.
pure cinnabar isn't toxic. The english wiki lists all the warnings just because it contains mercury, but it's important in which compound it is bound... mining can be deadly because the rocks contain Mercury in different forms (and other impurities).
Many artists still use lead white. It is tough, flexible, and does not flake. Artist grade lead white is available in the USA. The oil paint on a picture is safe. Just don't get it in your mouth or eyes. Or children. The pigment in powdered form is very dangerous if inhaled.
The problem with lead white is that it isn’t color stable - atmospheric contaminants can cause it to change color over time. Hydrogen sulfide turns it into black or brown lead sulphide changing the color drastically. Titanium doesn’t.
You didn’t mention the cadmium colors-popular bright reds, oranges, and yellows. I notice that nowadays, less toxic “cadmium hue” paints are offered that imitate the colors of the cadmium paints.
And some artist paint manufacturers have also developed high quality and performance 'cadmium-free' mineral pigments, presumably by using some special treatment to either organic pigments or using careful mixes of mineral pigments to approximate the color and opacity. They're really expensive, however, one such example is cadmium-free lemon, yellow, orange and red from Liquitex, those tend to cost 2.5x more than the cheap common pigments (ex. titanium white, the umbers and the siennas).
On the subject of toxic paints..... some oil based paints used to contain PCB's. Added because it would keep the paint flexible longer. That way, you could get some liver poison to go along with your nerve damage from the lead-based pigment.
Cinnabar is really quite beautiful, especially in crystal form. I'm sure that was exactly what some people were thinking. Then they just decided that endangering enslaved people was fine and didn't worry further. Sigh.
I worked in a metal plating shop and hexavalent chromium was BY FAR the chemical I feared the most. We used cyanide and nitric acids with no fear, hex chrome? Hell no!
As a Chemist, most of them don't scare me. The keyword is bioavailability. For instance, elemental mercury is not that toxic. People actually drank it, and 99.999% went out by the other end again... However, it's not safe, because breathing vapours are hazardous, though again not as dangerous, as drinking water-soluble mercury salts, or breathing, or touching organic mercury compounds, which can be absorbed via your skin! With lead and arsenic, it's a similar story, though elemental arsenic is more reactive and can become ionic and thus water-soluble. Now, if you put such dangerous elements into ceramics or lacquer, then you can touch it without any problems, as they are innert.
Not a paint, but a while back I found a can of Lead Arsenate 'pest killer'...I tried to take it to the Fire Department, thinking they could dispose of it for me. Nope, it wasn't on their list of 'bad chemicals'. That was in 1973...Hazmat today would have cordoned off the street and put the house in a tent.
Now I’m worried about the health of the people who do all the art restoration in all our museums and ancient buildings. I knew about the lead problem with old paint but my god, they used to just use poison as the base to every color. Including makeup. Although, they still put nasty stuff in modern makeup. I’d love for you to see what the science says about the ingredients in todays makeup. For some reason it seems companies are allowed to put in new ingredients before any long term testing.
I want to make a painting with all of these. Maybe like a mushroom cloud or something. Or maybe a portrait of a terrible person. Making it out of toxic paint adds meaning.
No mention of cadmium pigments - orange, yellow and red? All very nasty. Also, no mention of "A brush with Bekah" who collects and demonstrates these paints.
I love cadmium pigments, they're so bright and beautiful, and I use them occasionally. As long as you work in a ventilated area, don't eat them, and wash your hands or wear gloves, they're not *that* dangerous.
@@pattheplanter Thanks for the info! I'll be sure to note the use of any heavy metal pigments in the future! In the past I thought it was NBD for gifting or selling for display as the amount I used was relatively minimal in the grand scheme of things and I don't expect people to be eating or composting it. (Also, the use of "disposed of" is funny here.. I don't expect people to be throwing it away! LOL.)
even today, VOCs, Cadmium Red, etc.... My very first panel at a sci-fi convention was called, "dying for your art". I was very close friends with artist Robin Wood, who gave up painting entirely because of the health effects on her body. She even developed an allergy to turpentine. I use color pencils. because the pigments are bound up in the wax, and there are techniques you can use to make them look almost like acrylic or oil paintings.
I am surprised that two pack paint was ignored. It is cyanide based and causes wild shifting metallic tones used primarily by the British brand Tvr before they shuttered.
Cadmium pigments are still used in fine art paints and they are very dangerous. Using them continuously (such as over the course of an art career) greatly increases your risk of developing cancer, especially if you eat or drink while working. They're also insanely bad for the environment. Unfortunately they still need to be manufactured and used because it's extremely difficult to exactly re-create the shades of red and yellow that cadmium can achieve. Painters who are very enthusiastic and particular about color (my professor lol) insist that imitation cadmium red doesn't cut it.
And this, class, is why our health insurance companies don't want to help you when you were run over by a bus, because they can say you had a pre-existing condition.
I thought he would mention the radium paint used for glow in the dark watch hands back in the day too, but this is a nice selection of poisonous paints! If you want more of this stuff, I think there's a shorts/TikTok creator out there who collects antique paints! They explain what is in it and show how they look on canvas in a safe way.
It's astonishing how much suffering we're willing to endure to get a pretty red. Of course it's far easier to endure someone ELSE's suffering... grr. Paints and pigments can be horrifically toxic yes - but DYES will also kill you as it turns out, so textile workers also encountered a bunch of poisons in those factories.
Plot twist: since traffic paint isn't under domestic / consumer regulations, many jurisdictions still used toxic pigments and paint additives on these. One example I know in my area was from the Puerto Rico Highways and Transportation Authority, which didn't ban use of lead paint for its road construction projects until 2010, and there's been major projects that are impacting areas built or rehabilitated as recently as the late 2000s that contain these pigments. The main culprit here tends to be lead chromate, due to its very opaque and bright yellow color, used for yellow pavement and curb markings. I'm sure there's many jurisdictions that have similarly recent bans, and a few others who still use it for industrial and infrastructural applications.
it isn't. Not soluable in water (even strong acids). Mining it, especially the old way, can be deadly because the rocks aren't pure HgS. And it is not recommended to use in tattoos because it can cause allergic reactions.
There is over a hundred school bus yellow colors today. They are lead and chromium free as well as most of the refinish materials used to repair them. It's not just a range of school bus yellows across manufacturers it's over year to year or even bus to bus for the same manufacturer during the same year. Zink chromate was used for many years as a direct metal primer to prevent corrosion. It's mostly replaced by galvanizing and electrocoat primer. Sometimes epoxy or non chromate etch. Most auto refinish materials are acrylic urethane with at least the primer surfacer and clear being catalyzed. Many are now a latex or in some cases a water reduced acrylic enamel color coat used over and under those respectively. They have eliminated the lead, chromium and nickel from most refinish systems
3:53 Number 4 became an issue in the Netherlands, where the train were painted with Chrome-6 paint. The government had a program to get people back into the workforce, as well as those doing community service as a sentence, sand the trains for painting. Creating Chrome-6 dust in the progress. Many people got sick, the government endlessly denied responsibility, but had to relent. It still schemed and swindled its way out of most of the damages, of course.
@@rosekopelowitz5069 or only use plant based dyes, like beta carotene, Caramel Color (which can be made with sugar and citric acid), Betalain (the reason beets are red, although it can cause red colored urine), Anthocyanidin (the name is a reference to their color, not the chemical cyanide).
@@rosekopelowitz5069 Food isn't ugly if you include things that are naturally rich in colours. There are plenty of vibrant reds, oranges, yellows, and greens, and even some pretty good blues and purples, to be found in a well-supplied greengrocer's store.
We still use lead white in paint as it has very unique properties that titanium can’t replicate (including being much stronger). Current studies show that Zinc oxide shouldn’t be used anymore as it leads to cracking
find it funny how each of the colors were mentioned in rainbow order Cinnibar *Red* - Minium *Orange* - School Bus *Yellow* - Scheele's *Green* - Manganese *Blue* - Cobalt *Violet*
Barium is still a poison, but when in the form of barium sulfate it is so insoluble that virtually none remains available to be absorbed. Sometimes bad batches are made that contain residual soluble barium, with corresponding deaths.
For artists, I hope the toxicity is on our minds! A lot of our paints and other materials are less toxic than they were, but many still contain toxic heavy metals and other colorants, not to mention the solvents, silica dust, and so on. Stay safe when creating!
Guy tells us Barium is toxic. "And if even a small amount gets in your body..." Ummm... hello? What about that barium milkshake I drank before an Xray? Who am I suing?
some of the things are not really wrong but missing some important facts (me living around Schweinfurt, one of the main manufacturing sites of Schelle's green). The real scandal is, for profit GB tapestry manufacturers still used it despite of its toxity and many killing people proven. Only because people recognized, this paint might kill their children, the could not sell this stuff anymore in GB (all other countries banned it years before). Or cobalt blue: really would like it for my coffee mug for its intense blue hue - glazed and glazing without major damage no problem.
Toxic elements obviously evolved bright colors as a warning signal to predators. The modern, safer alternatives are an excellent example of Batesian mimicry.
If (and only if) the water remains slightly alkaline, the lead remains insoluble and the water is safe to drink. However, as Flint residents have shown us, sometimes greed takes over, companies change water treatment chemicals to save money and then disaster strikes.
I’ve never heard Sheele’s Green pronounced that way before. I’ve always heard people pronounced Sheele as you would pronounce heel, heal, seal, or wheel.
There are still houses with lead plumbing and paint. These are old houses and this is an issue which affects poor families especially those that drink tap water. Older homes are often less insulated so more insecticide use as well
Medical grade barium sulfate is carefully prepared as to ensure there is no unneutralized soluble barium salts left. That is not easy since barium sulfate tends to form microscopic clumps containing the original solution inside, with very soluble and toxic barium salts.
Funny thing is we're actually seeing this with otherwise harmless substances becoming dangerous in dust form. One that's relevant for art is titanium dioxide--the world's most widely produced pigment, giving us its intense white color. As paint it's harmless, but the mineral in fine dust form has the same hazard of respiratory damage and latent risk of cancer from other mineral powders.
Wow, this video was really well done! I never knew there were so many toxic paints out there. That said, I wonder if some of the dangers of these paints are overstated. With proper handling and precautions, I feel like people can minimize risks. But then again, maybe that’s just me being too laid back about safety? What do you all think?
Scheele's Green made the news in Germany this year because a number of libraries put their books with green covers from that time away for safety until they had determined whether it's dangerous to handle them. The result was basically "don't lick the covers" and I think that's good advice for _any_ library book.
I can say with confidence I've never considered licking a book cover....
Though I could see toddlers inadvertently nomming on a book, I'd hope it's a children's section book and not an antique 🤔
My grandmother collected antique bibles. Over half her collection had arsenic covers.
@@bellablue5285 The worry was that handling those books could expose you to the arsenic either through skin contact or even just breathing in the dust. But apparently the colour is fixed well enough that no extra precautions are needed.
@rolfs2165 oh yeah no, I know, I have a couple lovely green hardcovers from a similar time period that I am very careful to make sure I wash my hands after handling (haven't tested them so I err on the side of caution). I would hope libraries wouldn't have to tell folks not to lick the books, but stranger things have happened I'm sure
As a parent who reads with their toddler, I must attest that -- while definitely good advice -- a certain subset of the human population just won't follow it...
i love how cheerful tom looks while explaining how various poisons kill you
😂
I love your jawline, do you mew?
I think the word is passionate
Ummmm You're welcome - Tom
😁
Here's your regular reminder to never tip your paint brushes with your mouth, whether painting war gaming minis or landscapes. Wear protective gloves when working with solvents, and for the love of all things Open A Window!! Or have an extraction fan, or something! It's bad enough being a starving artist, don't add a health crisis to your list.
Oh yeah, no, the only paint I ever taste is mummy brown 😁😐
Most acrilics should be safe, but I had no clue people would put the brush in their mouth... It's covered in paint water... But never paint without ventilaton, it's safest to not paint around pets, and don't accidentally drink the paint water... Not recommended... Luckily I've never done that
@@alteria2714 If you're buying cheap craft paints, yes. Army Painter or Vallejo? Probably fine. GW? Who knows what they put in there. Golden: mmm cadmium. The best reds and yellows. Golden's So Flat range is pretty basic but fantastic coverage, in part due to using the more nasty pigments.
Jaw-dropping radium girls?
Btw, since the last elections, the most toxic color is orange.
Radium Girls anybody?
Oh, Scheele's green was bad for the middle-class residents too! Victorian homes were humid (it's England after all) resulting in fungal growth, and some of those fungi could metabolize arsenic into a gaseous form.
And Napoleon’s house on St Helena had green wallpaper…
Emerald Green, Schweinfurt Green, Paris Green, Vienna Green used starting 1814...
A read about an infant chewing on a bit peeling up near the floor, it died. Also someone's parrot getting sick? I know they're sensitive, canary in a coal mine and all that.
But I think all those gaseous poisons lead to the belive that there was bad air and that's why they felt better at seaside health resorts
Ah, so that was the mechanism. I remember there was a period of debate with one of the major manufacturers insisting the arsenic in the wallpaper was incapable of poisoning the residents unless they ate it, but the mortality statistics showed otherwise.
I am REALLY enjoying Tom as the host. He is so easy to listen to and engaging to hold your attention without being distracting.
Scishow are psychos who support torturing animals in mad Science experiments. That's what science is about, torturing animals, that's all science is. An alternative? So glad you asked : pour the medicine down the drain it's better for people to die as nature intended.
I love how they moved along the spectrum in the presentation (after White), from Red to Violet. Clever kids ;)
Nice catch.
Some other pigments are worth mentioning:
• Cobalt blue is still in use, though it contains no arsenic.
• There is another chromium pigment, chromium oxide green, but this one is trivalent and relatively harmless.
P.S. Hexavalent chromium is the reason why chrome plating is so heavily regulated.
8:47 "The dose makes the poison" is a quote attributed to Paracelsus, who is regarded as the father of toxicology.
As an artist who paints in oils everyday, i assure you toxic fumes are something that i think of everyday.
You won't need to get buzzed up after u done tho
@handledis lol...even when using non toxic gamblin paints and no solvents if i forget to vent my studio by opening the doors on either side to get a through flow of air i can assure you're assumption is correct.
wondering about spray can paints
@softwarerevolutions i had to force myself to not get into that for this reason. Basically no way to avoid some level of toxicity being around that much vapor.
Same. I wonder what the odorless turpenoid does conpared to the others. Also, I presume cadmium orange, red and yellow still have cadmium? and are the blues in prussian and ultramarine fairly safe?
the trouble is that a lot of the most brilliant pigments come from metal oxides, which are oxides because they react easily to oxygen - which is abundant in and needed by our body.
Painter here, I've used or seen some of these pigments before and they really do pop. I haven't used it personally due to the labour involved in cleaning it up, but lead white has this beautiful, bright, clean, warm white that zinc and titanium white just don't quite match in oil paintings. Cadmium yellow is a favourite of mine and one I've used personally, and it really is something special. As long as you don't eat it, work in a ventilated environment, and wash it off if it gets on you, the risk really is pretty minimal. A lot of painters wear gloves and even masks for added protection.
The use of these pigments was very significant when they were introduced, as they would provide a tremendous vibrancy that couldn't be matched or surpassed until modern organic chemistry created numerous organic and organometallic compounds with far lower toxicity and comparable appearance. Even then, these pigments are usually less durable against environmental conditions, most notably by being less lightfast (they degrade when exposed to light, and especially the sun, over long time periods), while also tending to be transparent (strong color but doesn't thoroughly cover the background).
Some examples:
- Magenta
- Pthalocyanine pigments (pthalo blue, pthalo green)
- Arylide pigments (arylide yellow and diarylide yellow)
- Pyrrole red (a really bright and perfect red)
- Naphtol red (a bright red-orange)
- Dioxazine violet (a very bright violet compound)
- All modern fluorescent colors
My art studio still recommends flake (lead) white for advanced oil painters because nothing can quite match it for the reasons you describe. I started my oil painting journey about 5 years ago and have hesitated to make the jump, because I still get paint on my fingers - really, I should just give in and wear gloves - although I wash my hands thoroughly after an hour and a half when I take a break.
We use cadmium yellow & red quite extensively, as we are taught to start with the 3 primaries & white to mix everything (or, for a more "European" style that's better for mixing cool colors than warm, alizarin crimson, medium yellow, prussian blue). Children's classes substitute something else for the cadmiums; I forget what.
@@ellenbryn I understand not wanting to wear gloves! I really dislike the feeling of having sweaty hands under the vinyl/nitrile, hence why the pigments/paints I tend to use tend to be on the lower end of risk. I only really wear gloves when I'm spraypainting due to an old bit of advice I received that I never fact-checked: In my teens I was told to never, ever get spraypaint dried under your nails because if you happened to be nearby a fresh bit of urban art and the police didn't like your style they could question you just for happening to have it on your hands, even if you weren't the person to do it!, though I've become considerably more lax about it over the years. I have no idea how grounded that bit of advice was, haha.
Anyway, (a belated) congratulations on starting your oil painting journey!! It's really a wonderful medium. I'm happy for you. Do you ever post your work anywhere? I love checking out others' works, though admittedly I haven't been posting mine anywhere (social media feels so involved, like I'd have to make a whole to-do out of it. Maybe I'm just procrastinating for groundless reasons and it isn't so bad, lol. I've been meaning to get around to it, myself...)
I work in hazardous waste and paints are always fun to dispose of. Most of the time it's just oil based and flammable or water based and non flammable, but there's always the chance it can have fun additional stuff like chromium that makes it trickier to dispose of.
I didn't hear mention of bottom paint, the red stuff used on salt water boats and ships to thwart barnacles. Incredibly toxic but that is by design.
Nor did we hear about the jaw-dropping Radium Girls...
Anti-fouling paints used in ships are often lead compounds, including lead white (alkaline lead carbonate) and red oxide / red lead (lead tetroxide), both of which were mentioned in the video but not with this use case you mention.
Yup anti fouling paint has a lot of nasty ingredients. Mainly copper arsenate, organic tin 4 compounds and lead oxides.
It doesn't help that cinnabar sounds so edible
too crunchy..lol.
pure cinnabar isn't toxic. The english wiki lists all the warnings just because it contains mercury, but it's important in which compound it is bound...
mining can be deadly because the rocks contain Mercury in different forms (and other impurities).
@@deinauge7894 Does it taste good?
@@Gnurklesquimp2 like the porcelain plate you could serve it on. Freshly mined it might have a toxic sweet smell though
@@deinauge7894 I will look into my options
Many artists still use lead white. It is tough, flexible, and does not flake. Artist grade lead white is available in the USA. The oil paint on a picture is safe. Just don't get it in your mouth or eyes. Or children. The pigment in powdered form is very dangerous if inhaled.
The problem with lead white is that it isn’t color stable - atmospheric contaminants can cause it to change color over time.
Hydrogen sulfide turns it into black or brown lead sulphide changing the color drastically.
Titanium doesn’t.
@allangibson8494 I like to mix some titanium into lead white. I avoid unpolymerized linseed oil in white paint. Zinc white is right out.
@ Lead white confuses amateur historians when a Caucasian turns black too…
You didn’t mention the cadmium colors-popular bright reds, oranges, and yellows. I notice that nowadays, less toxic “cadmium hue” paints are offered that imitate the colors of the cadmium paints.
And some artist paint manufacturers have also developed high quality and performance 'cadmium-free' mineral pigments, presumably by using some special treatment to either organic pigments or using careful mixes of mineral pigments to approximate the color and opacity. They're really expensive, however, one such example is cadmium-free lemon, yellow, orange and red from Liquitex, those tend to cost 2.5x more than the cheap common pigments (ex. titanium white, the umbers and the siennas).
Except for their toxicity, they were great. Vibrant colors highly stable even in the harshest conditions and UV exposure.
On the subject of toxic paints..... some oil based paints used to contain PCB's. Added because it would keep the paint flexible longer. That way, you could get some liver poison to go along with your nerve damage from the lead-based pigment.
They put pcbs into furniture polish, too.
there are pcbs in most electronic nowadays !
Ah yes, the age-old question: Does it look pretty enough to risk dying for it?
Don't pet the blue rings!
You mean to guarantee dying for it
Cinnabar is really quite beautiful, especially in crystal form. I'm sure that was exactly what some people were thinking. Then they just decided that endangering enslaved people was fine and didn't worry further. Sigh.
You mean "dye-ing" for it? ;)
@@boydstephensmithjr Good call-will admire from a safe distance!
I worked in a metal plating shop and hexavalent chromium was BY FAR the chemical I feared the most. We used cyanide and nitric acids with no fear, hex chrome? Hell no!
As a Chemist, most of them don't scare me. The keyword is bioavailability.
For instance, elemental mercury is not that toxic. People actually drank it, and 99.999% went out by the other end again... However, it's not safe, because breathing vapours are hazardous, though again not as dangerous, as drinking water-soluble mercury salts, or breathing, or touching organic mercury compounds, which can be absorbed via your skin!
With lead and arsenic, it's a similar story, though elemental arsenic is more reactive and can become ionic and thus water-soluble.
Now, if you put such dangerous elements into ceramics or lacquer, then you can touch it without any problems, as they are innert.
Great! now I’m imagining mercury-based diarrhoea…
@thekingoffailure9967 LOL. People have drunken mercury because of constipation!
Not a paint, but a while back I found a can of Lead Arsenate 'pest killer'...I tried to take it to the Fire Department, thinking they could dispose of it for me.
Nope, it wasn't on their list of 'bad chemicals'.
That was in 1973...Hazmat today would have cordoned off the street and put the house in a tent.
Not touching and/or licking old artwork: Not just for the art's safety!
Now I’m worried about the health of the people who do all the art restoration in all our museums and ancient buildings. I knew about the lead problem with old paint but my god, they used to just use poison as the base to every color. Including makeup. Although, they still put nasty stuff in modern makeup. I’d love for you to see what the science says about the ingredients in todays makeup. For some reason it seems companies are allowed to put in new ingredients before any long term testing.
I love that they went through the color spectrum
I remember, as a professional painter, having a really ugly "trip" after painting a bathroom. It was undescribable.
more likely to have been the solvents, rather than these pigments themselves?
Prediction: This will mention lead paint in Roman times, Paris Green, and uranium glass
"He did asbestos he could"
😂
Sharp nasal exhale.
Classic Tom Lum
I can't be the only one who read "The most poisonous PANTS ever"
I read it as “The most poisonous plants ever” LOL got confused halfway in that we didn’t talk about a single plant
@mimimosa259 True, not even a chemical plant.
I saw plants... lol
But yours is more funny 😂
Even funnier if it was the British definition of pants.
As an artist, it is too bad the most beautiful colors will kill you. Cobalts and cads are so nice to use.
The problem w/ hexavalent chromium is that your body mistakes it for phosphate. It is actively transported inside the cell. Then oxidizes things.
Remember: there is no safe amount of lead content in your body other than zero percent.
I got Led Zeppelin in my brain
HI TOM!!! SO GLAD YOUR THIS WEEKS HOST!!!!
I want to make a painting with all of these. Maybe like a mushroom cloud or something. Or maybe a portrait of a terrible person. Making it out of toxic paint adds meaning.
You need orange.
@@lorenzoblum868They could probably mix chromium yellow and cinnabar
No mention of cadmium pigments - orange, yellow and red? All very nasty. Also, no mention of "A brush with Bekah" who collects and demonstrates these paints.
I knew another fan of Bekah would be here, she's the first person I thought of when clicking lol
Yea cadmium is probably the easiest to encounter in acrylics. I have some.
I love cadmium pigments, they're so bright and beautiful, and I use them occasionally. As long as you work in a ventilated area, don't eat them, and wash your hands or wear gloves, they're not *that* dangerous.
@@Elanemakerworks You should label your art with hazard warning codes so that it can be disposed of properly. UN 2570.
@@pattheplanter Thanks for the info! I'll be sure to note the use of any heavy metal pigments in the future! In the past I thought it was NBD for gifting or selling for display as the amount I used was relatively minimal in the grand scheme of things and I don't expect people to be eating or composting it. (Also, the use of "disposed of" is funny here.. I don't expect people to be throwing it away! LOL.)
even today, VOCs, Cadmium Red, etc.... My very first panel at a sci-fi convention was called, "dying for your art". I was very close friends with artist Robin Wood, who gave up painting entirely because of the health effects on her body. She even developed an allergy to turpentine. I use color pencils. because the pigments are bound up in the wax, and there are techniques you can use to make them look almost like acrylic or oil paintings.
I am surprised that two pack paint was ignored. It is cyanide based and causes wild shifting metallic tones used primarily by the British brand Tvr before they shuttered.
Cadmium pigments are still used in fine art paints and they are very dangerous. Using them continuously (such as over the course of an art career) greatly increases your risk of developing cancer, especially if you eat or drink while working. They're also insanely bad for the environment. Unfortunately they still need to be manufactured and used because it's extremely difficult to exactly re-create the shades of red and yellow that cadmium can achieve. Painters who are very enthusiastic and particular about color (my professor lol) insist that imitation cadmium red doesn't cut it.
The wallpaper one lends a more sinister/ominous tone to the "snozzberries" scene in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory...
And this, class, is why our health insurance companies don't want to help you when you were run over by a bus, because they can say you had a pre-existing condition.
I thought he would mention the radium paint used for glow in the dark watch hands back in the day too, but this is a nice selection of poisonous paints! If you want more of this stuff, I think there's a shorts/TikTok creator out there who collects antique paints! They explain what is in it and show how they look on canvas in a safe way.
In Roman times they used to boil wine in lead pots to sweeten it.
It likely
Poisoned hundreds if not thousands at that time.
Kinda surprised you didn't include Radium paints on here, which were used to make glow in the dark watches and toys in the mid 1930s.
I like this guy. And the cobalt violet T-shirt looks great on him!
I'm going to add this video to an art playlist. Thanks!
Aww, no love for Radium?
One could argue that it was the Zinc Sulfide in Radium paints that was the "actual" pigment.
Misread the title as “most poisonous plants ever” and watched the entire episode wondering why when they would start talking about plants 💀
It's astonishing how much suffering we're willing to endure to get a pretty red. Of course it's far easier to endure someone ELSE's suffering... grr.
Paints and pigments can be horrifically toxic yes - but DYES will also kill you as it turns out, so textile workers also encountered a bunch of poisons in those factories.
I used to paint steel drums with lead based yellow paint😮
Not going to talk about radioluminescent paints or the Radium Girls in this episode?!?
I was most surprised by the swimming pool paint
Last time i was this early, they are still using poisonous paints
Hexavalent chromium is also extremely good at preventing corrosion on aluminum
It’s still used even now on every aluminium based Aircraft, crazy how we havnt found an effective replacement yet
@Topman22 we're moving towards Zinc Phosphate primer to replace the Zinc Chromate, but the phosphate doesn't work nearly as well
I got the notification for this video while I was working with traffic paint lol
Plot twist: since traffic paint isn't under domestic / consumer regulations, many jurisdictions still used toxic pigments and paint additives on these. One example I know in my area was from the Puerto Rico Highways and Transportation Authority, which didn't ban use of lead paint for its road construction projects until 2010, and there's been major projects that are impacting areas built or rehabilitated as recently as the late 2000s that contain these pigments. The main culprit here tends to be lead chromate, due to its very opaque and bright yellow color, used for yellow pavement and curb markings. I'm sure there's many jurisdictions that have similarly recent bans, and a few others who still use it for industrial and infrastructural applications.
Cinnabar is so gorgeous. I wish it wasn't so toxic.
it isn't. Not soluable in water (even strong acids).
Mining it, especially the old way, can be deadly because the rocks aren't pure HgS. And it is not recommended to use in tattoos because it can cause allergic reactions.
"Minium", not "minimum", is the etymology of "miniature". It originally referred to a painting (which happened to be small) made with minium.
Very nice, I have to share this with some of my classical old school oil painting friends.
My brain always forgets that pigments don't just appear out of thin air. As scary as they can be, it's amazing how pretty they are.
There is over a hundred school bus yellow colors today. They are lead and chromium free as well as most of the refinish materials used to repair them.
It's not just a range of school bus yellows across manufacturers it's over year to year or even bus to bus for the same manufacturer during the same year.
Zink chromate was used for many years as a direct metal primer to prevent corrosion. It's mostly replaced by galvanizing and electrocoat primer. Sometimes epoxy or non chromate etch.
Most auto refinish materials are acrylic urethane with at least the primer surfacer and clear being catalyzed. Many are now a latex or in some cases a water reduced acrylic enamel color coat used over and under those respectively.
They have eliminated the lead, chromium and nickel from most refinish systems
3:53 Number 4 became an issue in the Netherlands, where the train were painted with Chrome-6 paint. The government had a program to get people back into the workforce, as well as those doing community service as a sentence, sand the trains for painting. Creating Chrome-6 dust in the progress. Many people got sick, the government endlessly denied responsibility, but had to relent. It still schemed and swindled its way out of most of the damages, of course.
This person has such a good vibe 🙌
Stuck lead chromate in mustard too way back when to help make it yellow. :)
At this point I'm of the opinion that we need to just stop coloring food and let it be ugly 😂
@@rosekopelowitz5069 or only use plant based dyes, like beta carotene, Caramel Color (which can be made with sugar and citric acid), Betalain (the reason beets are red, although it can cause red colored urine), Anthocyanidin (the name is a reference to their color, not the chemical cyanide).
@@rosekopelowitz5069 Food isn't ugly if you include things that are naturally rich in colours. There are plenty of vibrant reds, oranges, yellows, and greens, and even some pretty good blues and purples, to be found in a well-supplied greengrocer's store.
We still use lead white in paint as it has very unique properties that titanium can’t replicate (including being much stronger). Current studies show that Zinc oxide shouldn’t be used anymore as it leads to cracking
So...Cinnabar isn't going to be in my Rocks Box subscription? 😂😂 I was really looking forward to that one! 😜
Love seeing Tom on here, excellent topic!
I'll keep in mind that if I ever steal the Mona Lisa I shall not eat it.
Guys, I saw some flaky sugar that feels kinda spiky, should I eat it?
yummy rock candy! 🤤
breathe it in, even better
I've heard it lets you smoke cigarettes cancer free!!!
No.
find it funny how each of the colors were mentioned in rainbow order
Cinnibar *Red* - Minium *Orange* - School Bus *Yellow* - Scheele's *Green* - Manganese *Blue* - Cobalt *Violet*
Barium is also used as a tool in X-ray examinations and is not poison .
Barium is still a poison, but when in the form of barium sulfate it is so insoluble that virtually none remains available to be absorbed. Sometimes bad batches are made that contain residual soluble barium, with corresponding deaths.
Tom should be a permanent host of SciShow!
Hooray for Tom Lum!
Hi Tom!
Nicely presented!
For artists, I hope the toxicity is on our minds! A lot of our paints and other materials are less toxic than they were, but many still contain toxic heavy metals and other colorants, not to mention the solvents, silica dust, and so on. Stay safe when creating!
Guy tells us Barium is toxic. "And if even a small amount gets in your body..." Ummm... hello? What about that barium milkshake I drank before an Xray? Who am I suing?
I think it's because the form of barium used in x-rays - barium sulfate - is insoluble in water.
@@AdamPeterson-cl3chYes, it is so insoluble that virtually none remains to be absorbed.
some of the things are not really wrong but missing some important facts (me living around Schweinfurt, one of the main manufacturing sites of Schelle's green). The real scandal is, for profit GB tapestry manufacturers still used it despite of its toxity and many killing people proven. Only because people recognized, this paint might kill their children, the could not sell this stuff anymore in GB (all other countries banned it years before). Or cobalt blue: really would like it for my coffee mug for its intense blue hue - glazed and glazing without major damage no problem.
Glazing poses no problem for very short term storage of drinks, but anything acid or alkaline would leach these metals quite quickly.
Toxic elements obviously evolved bright colors as a warning signal to predators. The modern, safer alternatives are an excellent example of Batesian mimicry.
Fact: many cities in the US still have LEAD water pipes for drinking water.
If (and only if) the water remains slightly alkaline, the lead remains insoluble and the water is safe to drink. However, as Flint residents have shown us, sometimes greed takes over, companies change water treatment chemicals to save money and then disaster strikes.
I’ve never heard Sheele’s Green pronounced that way before. I’ve always heard people pronounced Sheele as you would pronounce heel, heal, seal, or wheel.
I appreciate the effort you make! Personally, I hope the Vario takes a long long time.
should have covered cadmium red and yellow too; we still use them...
3:45 and show Chinese school busses (see hood, which reads 校车)
Guess what is in good looking red tattoos. Vermilion doesnt fade. Cadmium is those nice oranges.
Good show and great presenter, thanks.
Oh cool, not me working on my schoolbus conversion and seeing this video. Time to get a ventilator before I start sanding the exterior....
New host! Wow! Love, love, love!!!
No mention that most of these are cumulative poisons? Unless many other nasties, your body can't really get rid of them in a useful timescale
Supposedly, Lead salts taste very sweet. 😋
They do, that's why Romans used it as an artificial sweetener
I'm surprised the radium laced paint for the old school glow in the dark clock dials didn't get a mention either.
So which paints are safe to eat?
'Please don't scratch-n-sniff, or lick, paintings in National Gallery!'
There are still houses with lead plumbing and paint. These are old houses and this is an issue which affects poor families especially those that drink tap water. Older homes are often less insulated so more insecticide use as well
It's also far more dangerous while being removed. So it's such a pain that people just choose the slow poisoning.
Whoever developed School Bus Yellow should really watch Erin Brockovich
As a school bus driver, I was getting super tense until that last sentence about school bus yellow. 😅
Barium sulfate is extremely insoluble and is thus fine to use even in medicine
Medical grade barium sulfate is carefully prepared as to ensure there is no unneutralized soluble barium salts left. That is not easy since barium sulfate tends to form microscopic clumps containing the original solution inside, with very soluble and toxic barium salts.
The suffering for your art as a myth has overlooked this real possibility.
So you're suggesting I probably shouldn't have been licking the cobalt salt blocks we used to set out for the cows when I was a kid...🤔
Humans need low doses of cobalt too…
Aside from School Bus Yellow, he didn't say which paints are still being used.
I’m an artist and frankly, I’m really concerned for decades from now when we find out whatever I’ve been using is poisonous.
Funny thing is we're actually seeing this with otherwise harmless substances becoming dangerous in dust form. One that's relevant for art is titanium dioxide--the world's most widely produced pigment, giving us its intense white color. As paint it's harmless, but the mineral in fine dust form has the same hazard of respiratory damage and latent risk of cancer from other mineral powders.
Thankfully I'm a mountain dwarf with resistance, because I'm pretty sure I've been exposed to pretty much all of these.
Honestly Nostalgic for that manganese blue
There once was a painter who used barium in his paints, and you know what happened when he died... This joke has been used many times
Wow, this video was really well done! I never knew there were so many toxic paints out there. That said, I wonder if some of the dangers of these paints are overstated. With proper handling and precautions, I feel like people can minimize risks. But then again, maybe that’s just me being too laid back about safety? What do you all think?
Your videos are awesome!