El Liquido Milagroso

The miracle liquid – nickname for electrolyzed water (E.O.W.), an increasingly popular alternative to chemical cleaning products.

Reporting for The Los Angeles Times on the appeal of electrolyzed water, Marla Dickerson enthused:

It’s a kitchen degreaser. It’s a window cleaner. It kills athlete’s foot. Oh, and you can drink it.

Sounds like the old “Saturday Night Live” gag for Shimmer, the faux floor polish plugged by Gilda Radner. But the elixir is real. It has been approved by U.S. regulators. And it’s starting to replace the toxic chemicals Americans use at home and on the job.

The stuff is a simple mixture of table salt and tap water whose ions have been scrambled with an electric current. Researchers have dubbed it electrolyzed water – hardly as catchy as Mr. Clean. But at the Sheraton Delfina in Santa Monica, some hotel workers are calling it el liquido milagroso – the miracle liquid.

That’s as good a name as any for a substance that scientists say is powerful enough to kill anthrax spores without harming people or the environment.

(Electrolyzing salt water actually produces two “miracle liquids“: sodium hydroxide, a degreaser, and hypochlorus acid, a disinfectant.)