Science Questions

if I bathed in vodka would it get me drunk?

Not that I have any intention of doing this but if I bathed in vodka would it get me drunk? Steve, Witham

Kat - That's my idea of fun. I don't know because if you have a bath...

Chris - If you drink the bath water...My children do!

Kat - If you drank it, it might. I don't know if we absorb stuff through our skin. I thin kthe skin's barricaded for the blood stream.

Chris - The skin is pretty good but you do absorb alcohol at the sites of mucus membranes. That's why French people love putting suppositories in their bottoms, for example. There are some tablets you can put under your tongue. Where you have a mucus membrane the blood vessels are very close to the surface and the skin Is very thin. You can get things that dissolve well in fats to go through.

Kat - Would a lady, as well – through her lady parts – could get drunk by sitting in a bath of vodka?

Chris - Yes, men as well. I think you probably could absorb small amounts that way. Also your eyes, you cold get some of the vapour going in through your eyes, up your nose because it would volatilise. Presumably you'd make it warm sitting in a bath. You'd probably want it warm.

Kat - Maybe a cocktail umbrella.

Chris - Maybe some fruit to go with it.

Dave - I guess it'd also dry you out very quickly because osmosis would suck al the water out from inside you.

Chris - You'd be quite dessicated. You wouldn't want to drink the vodka probably, afterwards.

March 2009