Re: Ginagirl borax question

I have bought borax from the pharmacy, at a chemical supplier and just now I bought a washing powder from UK.
All three look, taste and feels the same. Usually borax is a mined powder; thats why it is so cheap; there are big deposits deep down several places on earth. It is as a crystal ; thousands of years old.
I would not hesitate to try the mountain rose; dip the tip of your finger in it, taste; if it is salty-sweetish , has around 9 in ph (I use strips)no odor; but saturated borax water reminds me of the smell of a wet dog. Thats why I mix it 50-50 with my regular shampoo; as I dont like that smell!`

Borax is necessary in small amounts for plant growth, one of the 16 essential nutrients. In larger amounts it is poisonous to plants, and the range can be small. For peaches, 1 ppm is required, but more than 5 ppm is toxic. If the signs of boron deficiency are noted in plants, a boron supplement can be applied. Borates can be used as non-toxic and non-specific herbicides. Borates are non-toxic to animals. The LD50 (dose at which there is 50% mortality) for humans is about 6 g per kg of body weight. Anything above 2 g is considered non-toxic, and borates are only 2 to 3 times as toxic as aspirin. Therefore, you are pretty safe unless you eat a pound and a half of borax for a snack. Borates are more toxic to insects than to mammals. The boranes and similar gaseous compounds are quite poisonous. As usual, it is not an element that is intrinsically poisonous, but toxicity depends on structure.
http://mysite.du.edu/~jcalvert/phys/boron.htm


The Death Valley colemanite mines were the origin of a famous trade name. The Harmony Borax Works were established at Furnace Creek in 1883. The product was hauled 166 miles south to Mojave by teams of 20 mules. The size of these teams was probably due to the harsh environmental conditions, in order that the mules should not exhaust themselves in the heat and aridity. They pulled only a wagon and a tank trailer (which was probably their water), which normally could probably have been handled by six mules. "20-Mule-Team Borax" was seen on many store shelves for many years, though now it is difficult to find borax in any supermarket. The teams worked until 1890, when the company failed and the mine was closed.

Kernite is an altered form of borax with only 4 waters of hydration instead of 10. It is also called rasorite, and has been the principal source of borax since 1927. Another source is the waters of Searles Lake, which are worked for other minerals as well, such as trona. Kernite is only found in Kern County, California, in the Kramer district about 3 miles north of Boron, California. The earlier railway siding at Kramer was renamed Boron. These deposits were discovered in 1916. Colemanite had been produced just to the east after 1913. Kramer kernite and Searles Lake brines have now completely superseded colemanite production. The Kramer lake beds are found in the Pliocene Ricardo formation. Most production is now from an open-pit mine opened in 1955. Boron is about halfway between Barstow and Mojave.

Borax is found mainly in arid regions, since borates are soluble to some degree and in a humid region would have been leached away long ago. They were deposited originally from waters associated with vulcanism. In California, this would be the great Tertiary vulcanism typified by sheet basalts. These borax-laden waters evaporated in lakes without an outlet in the arid environment that existed then as well as now. Some of these deposits were covered by later sediment and protected from leaching, like the kernite deposits of Boron. The conversion from borax to kernite is a result of mild metamorphism caused by burial under several hundred feet of overburden.

Where sea waters have evaporated instead of continental waters, as at Stassfurt, Germany, the hard boracite, a magnesium borate and chloride, may be found, associated with halite and gypsum. It is the only hard boron mineral (H = 7), though colemanite (H = 4) is harder than borax minerals.
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