I bought one of these odd scent things. [1]

Pearl Scent thingie

The “pearls” are fluid filled balls of liquid that slowly evaporate and release scent. After several weeks, it was nothing but a shrivelled film of white specks in a gel. I was about to throw it out (actually I was planning to save the top for a stencil), when I read
… “Do not dispose in a drain”

Curious, I filled the thing up with water again. A thought I could get some scent out of it, at least.

I returned a few hours later and the pearls were fully filled and swollen with liquid again!

What a fun little osmosis toy!

“Net movement of solvent is from the less-concentrated (hypotonic) to the more-concentrated (hypertonic) solution, which tends to reduce the difference in concentrations. ” [2]

Makes me wonder how they make these little pearl beads. I’m sure it’s a patented trade secret!

Links:
[1] The product: http://www.renuzit.com/index.cfm?page_id=458
[2] The Wikipedia Article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osmosis