Quacks & Hacks Fraud of the Day: Foot Detox Bath (2025)

By Josh Bloom — Dec 31, 2024

A fool and his money...

I ran across an ad for what may be the single lamest quack product I've seen. It's not the "worst" in that unlike some others it won't harm you. But the Ion Pure^TMDetox Foot Bath is so incredibly stupid and easy to disprove using simple chemistry that it getsinto the Pooperstown Hall of Shame on the first ballot.

Here's a (hopefully) amusing and informative article about how easy it is to prove that the device is$129.99 worth of crap– pretty muchthe same substance that the Detox Bath is supposed to remove from your body. Think I'm exaggerating? Not one bit. Check it out on the Gear Elevation site:

Snippetfrom the Gear Elevation site. I don't know what this photo proves. One foot was dirtier than the other? Two different people, one dirty and one clean sharing a foot bath? At least it's 50% off, which is still 50% too much.

Woo hoo! It's the Ion Pure^TMIonic Detox! And better still, it's the professional-grade. After all, who would want to soak their tootsies in something as dumpster-worthy as an amateur-grade foot bath? No sir. If I'm going to have liquid fecal matter suckedfrom my anal region down through my legs tomy feet where it will be eliminated, nothing less than the professional-grademodel will suffice. I may not get paid very much but I've still got standards.

Liquid fecal matter? Who said anything about that? Gear Elevation doesn't specifically mention "liquid fecal matter" (the technical term for this is'doodiewater') or anything about feces at all,but check out this photo from the site and tell me what else theycould possibly be hinting at.

Credit: Gear Elevation

This brown stuff is gonnacome oozingout of your body by soaking your feet? Please.

P.T. Barnum barely scratched the surface:

If Katlynn even exists and doesn't already know that she's been had, she will now. The nice folks at Gear Elevation have played a trick on all the Katlynns who have incinerated $129.99 to see a two-cent chemistry lesson, one that has nothing whatsoever to do with feet. It's called the electrooxidation of iron, aka rusting. This is where the ickiness in the photo above comes from.More on that later.

Hydrated Iron Hydroxide is formed by a chemical reaction in a test tube.Photo: Arizona State University

First, where does all the iron come from? Rememberthat little black round thing in the bath in the first photo? Here's what it looks like when it's taken apart.

You can see in a YouTube videothat when the cover is taken offthe device, it consists ofa steel coil (steel is almost entirely iron)and two terminals where an electrical current can be applied. The rest is simple redox chemistry.

The oxidation of iron by oxygen is promoted by the addition of an electric current (e-). The product is ferrous hydroxide, aka rust.

The clever chaps (theyare British) who made the video also prove that theIon Pure^TMIonic Detox is an ionicallypure piece of s###. Here are some screenshots from the video.

1)Bowl of water. No feet. 2) Black thing (electrode) is added. 3) Current is turned on. Thirty seconds later the icky brown color is already apparent. 4) No one feels any better other than the shysters who have extracted 130 bucks so that people can watch rust form in a foot bath.

So, the electric current promotes the formation, but you would see the same reactionif you put a piece of steel in a bowl of water and sat there for 100,000 years. Believe it or not, this experiment has already been tried...

Mervyn, the last remaining dinosaur. Saved by foot detox.

Sonow you have: 1) Afree lesson on electrochemistry, 2) the wisdom not to blow $130 on a thoroughly useless device 3) the ability to send that $130 to ACSHto help you and the rest of the world keep your feet clean. Just a suggestion.

Bottom line

This thing is an unadulterated ripoff. Whether you put your feet, a box of Raisinettes, a glass eye, a tube of anchovy paste, or nothing at all into this stupid bath the result will be the same.

Your money will rust.

Tags:

• Ion Pure Detox Foot Bath Scam
• Electrooxidation
• Redox Chemistry Pseudoscience
• Rust Formation
• Consumer Awareness
• quackery
• consumer ripoffs

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