Is it true that if you completely cover the skin of a person with paint, then it will die?

In Russian -speaking and in foreign publications, you can often find a city legend that after applying a layer of paint to the whole body, a person will die. We checked whether this is really so.

In the post-Soviet space, the story of death due to covered skin paint is largely known because of Articles in the 1960 Children's Encyclopedia. Its author, physiologist Alexander Kabanov discusses the role of thermoregulation in the human body, although it precedes its text fictional The story of a similar episode with the participation of Leonardo da Vinci. In Western tradition, it is much more famous episode From the film "Goldfinger" about the adventures of James Bond, where the villain kills the girl, covering her body with gold paint. Allegedly, so that the actress does not suffer the same fate, some areas of her skin are even specially left unpainted. However, this plot can be found in Russian-speaking publications-for example, in online versions magazine GQ and on site Fans of actor Sean Connery, the first performer of the role of James Bond.

Let's start with the "theory" from Bond. The main character directly explains in the film that the girl covered with paint died due to the impossibility of skin to participate in the process of breathing. In the 1960s, when Goldfinger was shot, in the West there really was Distributed The opinion that people breathe, including through the skin, and the clogging of all pores will lead to death. At the same time, supposedly even a small, unpainted area of ​​the skin was enough to guarantee to survive. Shirley Iton, who played the role of the Golden Girl, I rememberedThat on the set they did just that, and a team of doctors was on duty on the site. By the way, the actress is still alive, although she left the profession shortly after the release of Goldfinger.

However, not all experiments with actors covered with paint in American cinema ended just as well. During the filming of the “wizard of the country of Oz” in the late 1930s, the body of actor Baddy Ebsen, who played the role of an iron lumberjack, covered First clown make -up, and then aluminum dust. Two weeks later, the artist got to the hospital, but survived. True, as it turned out, the problems occurred precisely due to dust, and not because of the paint. Jack Haley, who replaced Ebsen in the cast, was immediately made up of a mixture of paint and metal powder, and everything was without serious problems.

The fact that due to covering the body can occur with breathing problems do not confirm authoritative sources. A man breathes through his nose and mouth, so "clogging of pores" Can't Make any significant changes to this process. It is important to make a reservation that we are talking about special paints for body art. If you cover the body with acrylic or other paints not intended for such purposes, this may end deplorable due to unsafe substances contained in them. This is probably what caused death in the original story about the “golden boy” in the Renaissance era, which told Georgio Vazari. Although the art critic does not specify what the young man died from, in the colors of that time Contained A large number of metals and other toxic substances are much more likely that the boy died due to their influence, and not because of problems with thermoregulation.

Another version explaining the possibility of such death lies in the fact that the paint blocks the sweat glands through which the products of life are not released, including toxic ones. However, in this case, the explanation is the same as in the case of breathing: the role of the skin in the process of highlighting significantly inferior To the kidneys and other organs, so this will not have a serious influence.

Moreover, modern experts EmphasizeWhat is an absolutely real danger to a person covered with paint is to get a thermal blow. With prolonged wearing makeup, performing active actions and/or finding in the heat, paint can have about the same effect that the dense and tight -fitting clothes. However, if the makeup is applied to the body of the prepared person, and the process itself is controlled by specialists, terrible consequences are unlikely to occur. So, in one of the issues of the television show "Destroyers of Legends" leading covered Your bodies with paint to find out what influence it will have on their well -being. Doctors measured the temperature, pressure and other parameters before applying the paint and after. Specialists failed to record any significant changes in these indicators.

Thus, the application of makeup even on the whole body can hardly lead to the death of a person - at least we could not find a single case of such a sad outcome. Stereotypes that have emerged from mass culture and popular literature only indicate that in the past this technology was imperfect - the risk of harm to its health was not much higher than that of artists who constantly worked with paints. At the same time, with the development of body art, they began to make special paints that minimize possible threats, and people who use them can rather suffer due to their own unpreparedness, negligence or inaccurate.

Most of the untruth

What do our verdicts mean?

Read on the topic:

1. Is the story of a “golden boy” and the fault of Leonardo da Vinci in his death?
2. Snopes. DID an Actress Die During the Filming of ‘Goldfinger’?
3. NBC. James Bond Lied to Us: Death by Gold Paint Unlikely
4. BBC. Goldfinger and the Myth of a Bond Girl's Death