Melissa: Hey. I'm Melissa.

Jam: I'm Jam.

Melissa: And I'm a chemist.

Jam: And I'm not.

Melissa: And welcome to Chemistry For Your Life.

Jam: The podcast that helps you understand the chemistry of everyday life.

Melissa: Okay. Today, Jim, we're gonna continue down our sunny path of sun in the wintertime.

Jam: Nice. Nice. Nice.

Melissa: And we're gonna talk about sunglasses.

Jam: Oh, very cool.

Melissa: What are sunglasses? Are they just tinted glasses? Are they magical? Are they chemical? Are they scienceal scienceical?

What are they?

Jam: Great question. I don't know any of that.

Melissa: Okay. Well, we're gonna talk about it. And before we do talk about it, I do wanna thank doctor Franke Wood Black. She wrote an article that really helped me with a lot of my research from this, and it was kind of actually hard to find references. So I found hers, And then I went to double check others, and it was actually pretty hard to confirm some of this.

Eventually, I did. But without her foundation put in a very understandable way, it would have been much Harder. So thank you, doctor Woodblack.

Jam: Nice.

Melissa: So sunglasses. I think for a long time, I just thought they were glasses with tint on them, like some kind of dye or something.

Jam: Yeah. Me too.

Melissa: But there's more to it than that.

Jam: Also, I've also just often thought, man, overpriced. Like, a lot of times you see sunglasses or people that are really into them, which, like, no no shame, but I just think I don't wanna spend that on sunglasses.

Melissa: Well, I don't think you have to spend a lot, but I can tell you 2 things that you probably wanna look for the next time you buy sunglasses.

Jam: Okay.

Melissa: Okay. So for sunglasses to be effective, you're looking for 2 things.

Jam: Okay.

Melissa: 1, you want them to reduce visible light.

Jam: Okay.

Melissa: And 2, you want them to block UV light. Remember how we've talked about how sun has visible and UV components?

Jam: Yes.

Melissa: And so what that means is light is an electromagnetic phenomenon. It's on that's a big fancy word that means it's on the electromagnetic spectrum.

Jam: Mhmm.

Melissa: And the electromagnetic spectrum is sort of responsible for all the waves you hear about, radio waves

Jam: Mhmm.

Melissa: Light waves, UV waves, infrared waves, all those things are accounted for in different wavelengths on the electromagnetic spectrum.

Jam: Dang.

Melissa: And the sun's waves fall in the visible region, which is why we can see things around us. We get the light from the sun, and it falls in the UV region. So if sunglasses are gonna protect you, they have to fall in both of those regions. And

Jam: Right. And for y'all's benefit, Melissa's doing a really cool thing in where she's just putting her hands in front of her eyes to Simulate things being shielded and blocked and stuff. You guys are missing it. Really sorry about that. But it really helps.

It's helping a lot. Otherwise, I would not understand. But

Melissa: Yeah. It's just listen. I talk with my hands. So now let's talk about that light. Height is kind of weird.

I would say understanding light and its movement is one of my weaknesses. So in a beam or, like, a ray of light Mhmm. Imagine A wave that goes up and down, up and down. Like, you've seen, like, wiggles, squiggle waves drawn on a piece of paper. It's just up and down, up and down, up and down.

So when you're looking at that flat on the page, it just looks like a wiggle on there.

Jam: Mhmm. Mhmm.

Melissa: But in reality, you don't just have one that goes up and down, up and down, up and down, then you have another one that's, like, maybe Slightly into the plane of the page that also goes up and down, up and down, up and down. Like, if you twisted it slightly on its axis, copy and paste and twist it slightly on its axis.

Jam: Mhmm. And they

Melissa: have another one, and then you have another one, and then you have another one to our almost you can imagine like a Three d circular wave where all the things are going up and down next to each other. I feel like that's a hard thing

Jam: Yeah.

Melissa: To describe when you can't see me. Totally. I'm gonna describe it another way.

Jam: Okay.

Melissa: Now this is something I do in organic chemistry a lot. And actually, the other day, I was talking to my brother about this, about the structure of a molecule. And I said, when I shrink down and imagine myself the size of a molecule, this is what I envision. Mhmm. He's like, how often do you yourself down in your mind and imagine being on the molecular level.

And I said, all the time. So I want you guys all to shrink down with me.

Jam: K. So

Melissa: if you have on your page a squiggle up and down, up and down, up and down, Imagine you shrink down to that size of the page, and you're you're in the page, and you can walk around the squiggle. It's three d. You can see it from the front. You can see it from the back, and you can go to either end of it.

Jam: K.

Melissa: So if you walked around your doodle and you looked From one side or the other, you're, like, in the plane of the page, you can see only a line. Like, you don't see the individual squiggles. It just like a line straight in front of you?

Jam: Uh-huh. Uh-huh.

Melissa: Now imagine instead of just 1 line, there's, like, an asterisk of lines, And all those are squiggles too. Does that kind of make sense?

Jam: Yes. So, basically, It waves the waves of a Particle not particle, beam. Right?

Melissa: The beam. Of Mhmm.

Jam: Of light would not just be like, To think about it in a real context, it wouldn't just be like an up and down, up and down. It'd be like a up and down, Left and right, diagonal, diagonal. Like, in every direction, it would kinda be.

Melissa: Yes. Exactly.

Jam: Okay.

Melissa: I just pictured a good Image in My Mind. Did you ever put Konnects when you were a little kid?

Jam: I think so. It sounds so familiar. Like, the magnet, like Is is is that the new one?

Melissa: Ones. They're the ones that are, like there's a gray, long, skinny one that has, like, lines on all of them.

Jam: Okay. Like, they look kinda clicked together?

Melissa: Yes.

Jam: Okay.

Melissa: Those, I feel like, have a good, If you look down that long, gray, skinny one, you can see where all the lines of the waves would be.

Jam: Okay. Okay.

Melissa: That's so random. I kinda forgot about connects.

Jam: Oh, you know what it kinda reminds me of a little bit?

Melissa: What?

Jam: Now this I know this is not exactly it, but I just thought about how, like, Jellyfish, octopuses, and squids, like, go through the water. They all have they have multiple tentacle kind of things. And so as they do their, like, thing, they're all doing that, but they're not all, like, doing in the same direction, but it's a similar Wave movement. So if you just kinda put this all on top of each other instead, it'd be like a

Melissa: Yes. That's probably a good visual. It's just

Jam: long, like

Melissa: Yeah. It's really hard, I think, to take this into a thing that's very relatable. I mean, we just don't Work with beams of light. We live in beams of light, and we work with them all day every day in that way, but we don't imagine them. It's not like you can You can't manipulate them like you can molecules and atoms.

It's just kind of weird. You know? Mhmm. Mhmm. That's why this is one of my weaknesses.

But once you have that in your mind, I'm gonna tell you what a polarized lens does.

Jam: Okay. Cool.

Melissa: So a polarized lens Blocks out all of those waves except 1 coming in one direction.

Jam: K.

Melissa: So imagine if you have all your waves or all your jellyfish wiggles, whatever, and you have to push it through a tiny slit. So in that tiny slit, Only the up and down waves could get through or only the horizontal waves could get through, and it's going to eliminate all the other waves. It's going to absorb all those waves.

Jam: Okay. Okay.

Melissa: So if you have a polarized lens, you have some kind of probably polymer coating on your sunglasses is

Jam: Mhmm.

Melissa: That down at the microscopic level, have the polymers lined up axially So that they're all on the same axis so that they will only allow up and down, for example, waves or waves in one orientation. So you take it from all the squiggles of a jellyfish being all crazy, and when you're on the other side of the Lens, that's what's coming in. All the beams, all wild and crazy. They hit the lens, and on the other side of it, it's ordered. It's All up and down, you're only seeing the up and down or whatever, the one orientation of the beams.

Jam: So a fraction of the beams It actually can come through. So does that mean that they don't fully block it, but they reduce it a lot to where it it real it's it makes a big difference in terms of the harmful effects of UV?

Melissa: Yes. Well, not of UV. This is visible light.

Jam: Oh, you're just talking about visible light. Okay. Gotcha.

Melissa: Mhmm. So it can block the visible light, and that really reduces glare Because you're only seeing, for example, one sort of direction or one orientation. You're not getting all of the things that reflect off of a piece of Glass or off of the surface of the ocean or whatever. And if you have really good polarized lenses, I looked at The ocean with my nonpolarized lenses when I was with my sister, and all I could see was shininess. And then I put on her glasses

Jam: Mhmm.

Melissa: And I could see past the shininess. There was, like, no shininess.

Jam: Mhmm. And you

Melissa: could go maybe 6 inches into the water and just see fish That I could not see at all with my glasses on because there is so much reflection of the light.

Jam: Oh, interesting.

Melissa: But her polarized lenses filtered out that Glare. So you were only getting light from 1 orientation, so it wasn't so reflective. You could filter out the reflection and see into the water.

Jam: Interesting.

Melissa: So that is how chemistry reduces glare with your polarized lenses.

Jam: Dang. Cool. That's very cool.

Melissa: And I think it's really cool. I was amazed when I could see those fish that I couldn't see with my sunglasses.

Jam: Yeah. I wonder if I've never had very good sunglasses.

Melissa: Maybe because you don't wanna pay.

Jam: Yeah. I don't wanna pay, and also just not, like, a Super sunglasses y person. I've I have owned sunglasses, not super nice ones, but I just noticed that I forget them and never use them, never bring them anywhere. And it just it's weird how hard of a it is for me to get in the habit of using them.

Melissa: Yeah. And hers are really important because she works Outside a lot and did all kinds of stuff like that. It's important to protect her eyes from the sun. You know?

Jam: Yeah. That's that is yeah. It makes a lot of sense. I don't Have any of those situations where I'm really in need of of sunglasses to, like, do my job or something?

Melissa: Right. And hers were Not only outside, but outside on a boat. So she was I think that glare reduction from the water really, really helped. Yeah. Yeah.

But All of that that we are talking about is visible light. So that's just the filtration and reduction of glare from visible light.

Jam: Okay.

Melissa: You can have really nice polarized sunglasses that don't have any protection from UV light. And UV light can be very damaging. We talked about that in the last episode. We talked about that in the sunscreen episode. Yeah.

So if you wanna protect your eyes from UV light, you need lenses that will block UV light.

Jam: The the word polarized does not mean that, is what you're saying.

Melissa: It does not mean that. Polarized means it has a polarized The or polarizing film on it that will rearrange the orientation of the light beams that are allowed in. It blocks the rest of the light beams, so you only get This one orientation of light coming in, and it reduces glare, and it reduces the actual amount of visible light getting to your eyes.

Jam: Yeah.

Melissa: But it's possible that you could have that in absolutely no UV protection at all. So you have a better viewing experience, but your eyes might not be protected.

Jam: That's so interesting. I never like, you kind of already said that, but this the fact that the word polarized, I thought, was more about protection and just as a layperson just had didn't know. So that's huge.

Melissa: I know. It's It's sneaky because you think, oh, polarized sunglasses. These are really good, high quality, but they could only be protecting you from visible eye, and your eyes could still be at risk.

Jam: Yeah. Interesting.

Melissa: So before we move on to UV, do you wanna try to explain that back to me?

Jam: Yes.

Melissa: Just this one chunk about how polarized lenses work.

Jam: Yeah. Will do. So light visible light come at us. It's got beams. They're waving All kinds of directions, and especially when you're outside in a hot day in the summer or whatever or out on the water, There's light coming everywhere.

It's bouncing up from the water as well, and it is bright. So the but we we wanna still see something. So We wanna have something that can reduce the beams of light coming to our eyes without completely eliminating them. So the way they do that is by creating a polymer that they coat the lenses with that forces all of the light beams that are going to come through to only be in one of the directions out of the many that the beams wave. So

Melissa: Right.

Jam: It would either have have them have to reorient themselves or only some of them even make it through. Only a a portion of them even make it through Yes. To where we see, you know, a fraction I don't know what the what a good number would be, but but a fraction of the amount of light. That's something we we use actually something similar in cameras Mhmm. Called neutral density filters, which we always, always, always just say, it's like sunglasses for your camera.

Like, that's the Very common, like, just short little explanation of what a neutral density filter is is just No glasses for your for your camera. It doesn't have the UV aspect in that case. That's a different thing for cameras, but the same deal about trying to just Curb the intensity of light.

Melissa: That's so cool. I did see some I was trying to find out how they made the filters, and I did see some Camera lens filters that you could get. Something I thought of while you're talking was also you know, if you have Play Doh and you try to push all the Play Doh through Oh, no. Some PLAY DOH comes through. That's kind of what it's like, but it's only certain directions.

You also mentioned

Jam: reorienting. Mhmm.

Melissa: And I don't know if lights would reorient other than certain things can be can rotate light or if it reflects or Or or something maybe? I don't think they would just reorient themselves to get into your Yeah. Glasses. I think they would just be blocking all of them except the Vertical one. So it's like if you had the bars in a jail cell or slats on a stair rail handle or whatever.

Uh-huh. If you try to put something horizontal through them, it's not gonna Fit.

Jam: Yeah. It just yeah.

Melissa: But if you try to put something vertical through them, it will fit. That's basically what your sunglasses are doing to the light. All the horizontal or the diagonal or angled ones or whatever are gonna be blocked, and you'll only be able to get the vertical ones through or whatever.

Jam: Or or just like on a much larger scale like blinds. It's like all it is is giving you a lot of horizontal things. And you can even have the blinds open, but even even that still, like, starts to affect how much light is coming through

Melissa: just

Jam: by just by having something there. I know it's, like, not quite the same because full beams are still making its way in. Right. But it's enough to to affect how much light comes through.

Melissa: Yeah. That's perfect.

Jam: In a room? I wonder where I thought about that. I wonder if it was this Window with blinds right next

Melissa: to me. That you have right there. Yeah. An an interesting thing about polarized lenses, If you have a polarized lens and then you hold another one up to it that's oriented 90 degrees from the first one

Jam: Mhmm.

Melissa: It will block all light or most of the light from coming through because the first one blocks all but the vertical, And the second one would probably block all but the horizontal, but there are no horizontal beams coming through the first one. So it blocks everything.

Jam: Interesting.

Melissa: Pretty much everything. I don't know if it's a 100% effective.

Jam: I recently saw a video that would What you just said would completely explain it. It was, like, no no context where this person just held a thing in front of an image and then rotated it, and the image changed behind I'm not describing that very well, but it's, like, it's one of those, like, shared everywhere, like, what is happening in this video kind of Yes. Things. And that's gotta be what it was happening.

Melissa: Like, vertical Mhmm. Something allowed 1 picture to come through, horizontal something allowed a different picture through. Yes.

Jam: They woulda had to design the picture a certain way. But that

Melissa: And if you had 2 of those filters and you held 1 up and down and 1 left and right, it woulda blocked both pictures probably.

Jam: Interesting. Very weird, dude. That's so funny that I just saw that last night. And

Melissa: That's funny.

Jam: You're talking about that. That makes a lot more sense that I've seen that.

Melissa: So and if you and your friend both have polarized sunglasses or whatever, you can hold up 1 and then try to hold up the other one. You don't know for sure how the coding goes on, but maybe the opposite direction, like 90 degree angle from the first one, and you should be able to witness this happening. You know, I can t o, so much light come through, and then now there's almost no light come through.

Jam: Mhmm. Dang. Cool, dude.

Melissa: I know. Polarized light is really Cool. There's also some fun stuff with, enantiomers that we talked about a long time ago and how they rotate light, but we won't get into that. Okay. So the next part is UV rays.

Jam: Okay.

Melissa: So we need something that's like sunscreen for our eyes. In our sunscreen episode, we talked about how UV rays are either absorbed by sunscreen in organic molecules that happen to absorb right in that range. Mhmm. Or it's basically scattered away by little force fields of silicon oxides or metal oxides. Right?

Jam: Uh-huh. Uh-huh.

Melissa: Okay. So in sunglasses, we have the same thing. We either need a coating or a lens that's going to absorb the UV light and just Dissipated out as heat or whatever?

Jam: Uh-huh.

Melissa: Or we need some kind of coating that will Block it and reflect it.

Jam: Okay.

Melissa: And those seem to be the 2 methods that are used. You either have some kind of Material that coats the lens or the lens itself that will absorb UV rays, or they put a coating on that Has some kind of metal oxides or silicon oxides that reflects the light away from your eyes.

Jam: Got it. Got it.

Melissa: But here's where it's get gets kind of crazy, and I didn't know this. Okay. Have you heard of polycarbonate lenses?

Jam: Maybe I have maybe I've seen that word used about, like You know, I I see sunglasses, ads, and stuff. I don't really pay that close attention, but I feel like I've definitely seen some ads that advertise that. And I just thought it was, like, Sounded cool, hence that's why they're using it. You know? Our lenses are polycarbonate and blah blah blah.

You know? It just seems like a very Market y word if you haven't, but I'm guessing it's not.

Melissa: It's not what? A market y word?

Jam: Just market y?

Melissa: It's not. So the popular eyeglass retailer Warby Parker uses polycarbonate lenses. Nice. I think a lot of Eyeglass retailers are moving to using polycarbonate lenses because it doesn't break the way glass does, and it's actually cheap. It's pretty cheap to make.

Jam: Nice.

Melissa: What polycarbonate is is a polymer. Okay. We've talked about polymers. They are big molecules made up of a lot of small molecules. So we call it a molecule made up of a bunch of small molecules.

Jam: So I

Melissa: think that might technically make them plastic, although I'm not a 100% sure on where the line is drawn of Of polymers and plastic and all of that. But here's the thing about them. They block 100% of UVA and UVB rays.

Jam: No way.

Melissa: A 100%. And even the clear ones that have no coating block a 100% of UVA and b waves.

Jam: That is such great news. I have Rory Parker glasses that I have for a long time, and I never knew that.

Melissa: I know. It's incredible. And they say that on their website, actually, On their Warby Parker website.

Jam: Uh-huh.

Melissa: But I don't think it clicked to me how crazy this is. So to us, polycarbonate in its Natural state. Uh-huh. You can have, I think, different mixtures of what really makes a polycarbonate lenses or whatever.

Jam: Yeah. You have a little bit more poly, a little more carbonate depending on

Melissa: the Yeah. Definitely. But the for polycarbonate lenses that do block it, it looks transparent to us. But Imagine if you could only see in the UV range instead of in the visible range. Mhmm.

What looks transparent to us would be opaque in the UV range. I mean, they just Shut it down. It is the equivalent of a solid wall in front of your eyes when it comes to UV lens.

Jam: Wow. That is Such great news. I

Melissa: I know.

Jam: I was gonna I wasn't sure when to say this or whatever, but the last time I went to the optometrist, which has been Too long ago, I have a habit of waiting as long as possible to go to things that are good for me. But, They told me that I have UV damage on my, like what part of the eye is it? Anyway, either way, it doesn't matter what part. It's not good. And they're, like, you should wear sunglasses more or make sure you get glasses that protect UV really well or whatever because

Melissa: Mhmm.

Jam: You, have damage because you haven't been doing that. So it must be that at a certain point, I've up until a certain point, none of my glasses did that. And then I accidentally started getting glasses, like, 6 or 7 years ago that do do that.

Melissa: Yeah. Well, you can still get UV rays from around the outside. So they say kind of the bigger, the better, especially with sunglasses.

Jam: Right.

Melissa: But the lens themselves, the light that's coming directly on would be would be filtering out UVA and UVB. I think there is some UVC that could still get through.

Jam: Mhmm.

Melissa: One paper actually showed legitimately the spectrum where Light is absorbed in what could get through, and nothing was getting through on the the lower, like, UV range of the spectrum.

Jam: So that

Melissa: was cool, but it didn't go all the way into UVC. It stopped at u b UVB. So I don't know what's going on there. But It's very, very exciting. I got hyped about it.

I was I was thinking, how is this possible? So I was really excited.

Jam: That's cool. Man, that's awesome. I just would not have any idea, even I mean, clearly, I didn't read very carefully on Cory Parker's website about the glasses I've been buying that have that already in it.

Melissa: Well and one thing that they said that I appreciate is, I don't know what website, but, basically, it said cheaper sunglasses aren't made with polycarbonate lenses, and they usually have about 40% UV protection. But this is, Like, 99.9 or a 100% of UVA and UVB. So Uh-huh. It's worth it to opt for a polycarbonate lens when that's possible for you financially. Nice.

Actually.

Jam: Nice. Nice.

Melissa: So if you want the ideal experience, Go with a polycarbonate lens with polarizing films on it is what I would say. Not a doctor. I'm not an eye doctor, so this is not official medical advice. This is from a scientific perspective. What seems like The best product on the market would have those features.

A UV protection lens with some kind of polarizing thing over the top of it.

Jam: And huge plus scientifically if it looks cool.

Melissa: Huge plus scientifically. Yeah. 100% that's true.

Jam: I don't really feel like there's a lot of science to to explain in a different way, because it was pretty Simple, that second chunk about UV. And we'd gone into the first 2 l first 2 ways that things can The filter absorber, you know, deflect UV rays in our sunscreen episode a ways back. And so that was a little bit of review, but then the polycarbonate side of things, not a lot to to add to that. But sounds like we just have Polarized lenses or just have, you know, lenses that, just dim the light, Then that makes you comfortable in terms of looking around, but it's not inherently protecting you from UV. And that's just what we can feel and see but it's not really the most important.

Clearly, we can't really see UV, but it's just as important that we put on sunscreen. So putting sunscreen on our eyes through our through our through having good sunglasses or just good glasses that either have those methods of absorbing UV rays or Mhmm. Reflecting them or being polycarbonate, which are do those inherently reflect? Is that the method they have?

Melissa: No. I think they absorb. I think it absorbs the light, but I I couldn't say a 100% definitely that's what happens, but that was my understanding.

Jam: K. And that is sunglasses.

Melissa: That's it. That's sunglasses. It's magic. I was so hyped about those polycarbonate lenses. I didn't know that.

I'm always gonna ask now.

Jam: Yeah. For real, dude. That's very cool. That makes a lot of sense. And I'm glad that again, I remember thinking, like, when the optometrist told me that I had UV damage, and you can see it.

Like, she pointed out to me where But was the UV damage on my eyeballs? I was like, yikes. That's that's what that is. Okay.

Melissa: Weird. That's crazy.

Jam: Yeah. So I'm very glad and relieved to know that I already have some protection from that. And now I will note of make sure I look for that going forward

Melissa: as well. Seriously. That's awesome. Well, I think that sums it up really well. Anyway, you also wanna sum up your week for us today, Jam?

Jam: I'd love to. So as you know, we are moving at some point soon in the future.

Melissa: Mhmm.

Jam: And so I've been Having my head weigh in on some projects that we're gonna be doing on our next house pretty quickly. And so that's been Kind of a taking up all my spare time in a lot of ways. And it's also very hard to Plan projects on a house you do not yet own. I'm sure that anyone could have told me that, but, I'm experiencing that now. So just the simplicity of, like, someone coming to give you a quote on something.

It's like, oh, well, let me see if I can Get

Melissa: Actually access to the house

Jam: that we don't own yet and let you in there and check things out. So That's been pretty challenging, but we're wanting to to change a couple things before we ever live in this potential house. And, that's exciting, but also stressful, and that's been kinda taking up a lot of my time. But it would be great if it works out because Having a kid and having lots of projects going on while you're trying to have a kid take a nap and sleep through the night and all that stuff.

Melissa: Yeah.

Jam: Just not ideal. So it'd just be great if it works out to have those things wrapped up before we ever have to live in that house. So

Melissa: That wanna tell us what some of those projects are?

Jam: Yes. So one of the biggest ones is just painting everything. We're gonna

Melissa: Yes.

Jam: Paint Every wall and every ceiling. Twice if we have to. I'm just kidding. But it probably will take 2

Melissa: thirds. Get the nice Glossy stuff that makes it to where kids' crayon just swipes right off or whatever.

Jam: Yeah. Actually, a lot of painters, almost all of them, have had a specific, like kind of alliance with a paint that they just like a lot more, and they're like, this will last way longer. Every single one of who has given their own kind of preference about that. Also, in general, which is something I knew would be the case from the podcast, oil based paints, despite being, you know, way smellier and stuff, are so much stronger on, like, trim and stuff like that, which I thought was really interesting. And one of the things that one of the guys said was, like, yeah.

You can take Just a damp cloth and wipes and stuff like and just wipe and clean that paint way easier. And I was, like, oh, it's oil based, and Just adding some water and stuff to it was is not gonna is not gonna hurt. But so if we're doing that and we wanna redo the floors. And so I've been looking deep into vinyl plank flooring, which Mhmm. Is cool because it's inherently, like, Way super waterproof because it's all not, anything what do you even call that?

All the material is fake. I don't know.

Melissa: It's all synthetic?

Jam: It's all synthetic. Yes. Which, honestly, I guess, on the one hand is not great because that means it's plastic. But

Melissa: Yeah. Uh-oh.

Jam: But it's also like But

Melissa: it's the one time use plastics that are the worst that we need to really get rid of first. You know? There's plastic in cars. There's plastic everywhere. It's nearly impossible to go without using it.

Yeah. But One time use plastic is the stuff we wanna try to eliminate as much as possible, and then we'll worry about

Jam: Yeah.

Melissa: The long lasting stuff that you use every day for the rest of your life.

Jam: Totally. And and we're looking at ones that, like, are supposed to last, like, 30 years. Mhmm. And so that seems great. And, also, at the same time, it's like, well, That's nice if it's it's obviously cheaper, but also then it's not cutting down trees for wood flooring.

And I'm kind of, like, Let's leave the trees where they are and let them live, but also wood is cool, and so I want my board to look like wood. So

Melissa: Right.

Jam: I don't know, dude.

Melissa: That's funny.

Jam: So that's what's been taking up a lot of my time. What about you?

Melissa: Well, I would say the thing that's been taking up a lot of my time, I've been really busy. There's I don't know what this is from, but I can imagine someone from a TV show just being like, I'm very booked and busy. I don't know what that is from, but I have that quote in my mind, and that is how I've been thinking about my wife Kind of sarcastically for the last few weeks as I'm very booked and busy. And today, I don't have anything planned this evening, so I'm very excited about that.

Jam: Nice.

Melissa: But when I have been home, something I've been working on is going through my stuff and getting rid of Things that I don't need or use or like. Nice.

Jam: I have

Melissa: a lot of clothes that I don't fit into anymore, and they were just in my closet making fun of me And taking up space. You know? And every time I pulled out my drawer, I would have to shove the things in, and it was very annoying. And then I watched a video of somebody on YouTube just taking stuff out of her house, and I thought to myself, I could do that. Oh, yeah.

And so I went through, and I have sort of made a pass over every main space that I use and Just got rid of a lot of stuff, and it's so nice.

Jam: Yeah.

Melissa: All my clothes fit. All my hangers, I don't have to try to figure out where I'm gonna put stuff in the meantime With my hanger situation or buy more hangers or anything? Yeah. My drawers close easily now. I feel everything's cleared off.

And I even read an article in psychology today that said cluttered spaces can trigger a stress response in us. Yeah. So And I could see that happening. So I've been kind of trying to bring the level bring the amount of stuff I own down to only the things that I actually use or actually like instead of having a bunch of stuff taking up my space that just kind of annoys me.

Jam: Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Dude, I'm totally on board with that. That's awesome.

I think it's cool because it just makes a huge difference to be inspired by something like that. Somebody else's video or story or book or your friend doing it too or whatever. If you get, like, Inspired to do that, it makes all the difference in the world. No one thinks if just on their own, like, Let's go through stuff. That'll be fun.

But it's like, it can it's cool to to show how freeing it can be.

Melissa: Oh, yeah. I have probably 10 to go mugs, And I like 2 of them, and they're hand wash only. So they I use them once Each, and I leave them by the side of the sink as they need to be hand washed, and I don't have time. And then I just use The other ones that I have that I like less that are fine, but I just don't like them as much because I there's just, you know, reasons I just don't like them as much in anymore. Yeah.

And then they would all be dirty, and then they would all have to go through the wash. And my ones that I like the best have just been sitting next to the this all the time? Uh-huh. So I challenged myself to only use the one I really like and just wash it every day, and then I could get rid of The rest of them. Yeah.

And then I get to use my favorite to go mug every day.

Jam: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Melissa: So I'm kind of Seeing how that works out, and it's been really nice so far. My room feels so much more usable because there's not Just stuff around.

Jam: You know what I mean?

Melissa: Uh-huh. It's just really nice.

Jam: Yeah. Dude, yeah. That's awesome. I I love that. I I'm definitely down with that.

I have experienced a little bit of enough of that to to be like, I want more. You know?

Melissa: Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I'm thinking, what else can I get rid of that I don't really use? Yeah.

So Well, I should say thanks to you, Jim, because you and your wife are the ones who sort of started talking about simplifying things down and how much easier made your life. So thanks For that, and thanks to you and all the listeners for coming and learning about sunglasses today.

Jam: Well, thank you for teaching us, for giving us a nice, cool, shady episode to give for for our I mean, it it can still be sunny even if it's winter or summer or wherever anybody is. Wearing some shades can apply year round.

Melissa: So Yeah. Definitely.

Jam: Melissa and I have a lot of ideas for topics of chemistry in everyday life, but we wanna hear from you. If you have questions or ideas, you can reach out to us on Gmail, Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook at Kim for your life. That's Kim, f o r u r life, to share your thoughts and ideas. If you like to help us keep our show going and contribute to cover the cost of making it, go to kodashfi.com/chem for your life, and donate the cost of a cup of coffee. If you're not able to donate, you can still help us by subscribing on your favorite podcast app and rating and writing a review on Apple Podcasts.

That also helps us to be able to share chemistry with even more people.

Melissa: This episode of Chemistry For Your Life was created by Melissa Colini and Jame Robinson. References for this episode can be found in our show notes or on our website. Bierim Robinson is our producer, and we'd like to give a special thanks to A. Kewosang and S. Navarro who reviewed this