Dipping your fingers into Sodium Hydroxide

I did it :0

Curiosity is a bad bad thing sometimes. When I dipped my fingers into the hydroxide it became slimy and I realised that the hydroxide was literally reacting with the fats in my skin and making soap.

Huh?

An oil (triglyceride) will react with a strong base to form a soap, in a saponification reaction. It's quite an interesting area actually. The triglyceride breaks up into a glycerol and 3 fatty acid molecules, the negative fatty acid molecules then ionically bond with the Na+ from the base.
Another interesting thing I learnt (from an amazing book called Napoleon's Buttons), is that different bases make hard and soft soaps which is cool. Potassium soaps are hard and Sodium soaps are soft. I don't know why that's the case but I intend to find out! :0

I know, i know this is super random but i thought it was interesting

Over and out :)