How the brilliant automatic iodine cotton stick works.

These little things are very clever. They look like a standard cotton bud, but have liquid in the stem that is released into one end automatically when the other end is snapped. You can get them with a povidone iodine fill for sterilising small wounds or an alcohol fill for either wounds, or in our case precise cleaning applications.
Sounds easy enough, but the secret is in a unique gel that must have taken a lot of research to perfect.

Here's an ebay com search link for the iodine ones (typical price $4 per 100):-
https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2334524.m570.l1313.TR0.TRC0.A0.H0.X100pcs+iodine+cotton.TRS1&_nkw=100pcs+iodine+cotton&_sacat=0&LH_TitleDesc=0&_sop=15&_osacat=0&_odkw=100pcs+iodine+cotton+stick&LH_BIN=1&LH_TitleDesc=0

And a search link for the cleaning alcohol ones (typical price $4 per 100):-
https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=m570.l1313&_nkw=100pcs+alcohol+cotton&_sacat=0&LH_TitleDesc=0&_sop=15&_osacat=0&_odkw=100pcs+alcohol+cotton+stick&LH_BIN=1&LH_TitleDesc=0

As requested I've done the iodine-starch test and used a swab to soak some grains of rice. They turned a dark black/blue suggesting that the contents are iodine based.

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