The key to suspense in cinema it is in information management. In Alfred Hitchcock’s films, the viewer bites his nails because he knows things the characters don’t know. Thus, as in the tales of the master of suspensewe are “manipulated” (perhaps involuntarily) by the protagonist of a new viral video on Twitter.

“Not in 100 years could you guess where this is going,” he challenges @HeheWaitWhut, the user who shared the clip originally posted to the @washkooo TikTok account. On Twitter, the video has already been viewed by 7.2 million people and has thousands upon thousands of likes, comments and quotes. On TikTok it didn’t go that way, but that well, but it still broke.

The first glance reveals a man who cooks -yes, cooking- some empty syringes. Immediately, the viewer is glued to the screen because he wants to know why the man is doing what he is doing. The answer will come almost two minutes later.

What you see with the naked eye

If you make an effort and don’t advance the video, you’ll see how the man does stranger and stranger things. In colloquial terms, after cooking the syringes, he filters them and cuts off the tips.

He then removes the thorns from the leaves of a plant, attaches empty matchboxes to them, hangs them on a string and puts a powder that looks like ash inside the boxes.

Some time passes, the man removes the leaves and removes some new “ashes” from the surface of the plant. He puts the powder in a pan and, once cooked, sends it to a container where he grinds it with a mortar. The result: a new powder, this time crimson red.

The inventor puts the red powder in another container, pours hot water into it, mixes the liquid and returns to the pan. A burgundy paste is produced. This paste bordered the mixture with a strange, slightly thick orange liquid. The final product goes into the syringes, hardens and voila: a lipstick is born.

Explanation

According to @ gunsnrosesgirl3owner of the account with thousands of followers “Science Girl”, recurs the man in the video Louse (Dactylopius coccus), a sessile (immobile) parasite or cochineal that thrives on the moisture and nutrients of cacti of the genus Opuntia, to create a crimson red lipstick.

“A natural dye called carmine is obtained from this insect. The insect produces carminic acid which deters its predation by other insects, although, ironically, what saves it from predators is the main ingredient in the carmine dye, ”explains Science Girl.

So what man uses is a cactus leaf or Prickly pearanother plant of the genus Opuntia of the cactus family, consisting of oval blades, full of ears and bearing the fruit of the prickly pear, also called pico fico.

The cochineals, those “ashes” that are seen in the video, are grown on stems or blades of prickly pears or cacti to obtain natural dyes.

From the cochineal grain, a natural red or crimson extract is obtained, which when mixed with acids, such as lemon juice (the rare orange liquid in the video), gives other shades of red. If combined with alkaline, however, it gives a purplish color.

This process has been carried out since the times of the Mesoamerican peoples, where the grain was appreciated by the inhabitants and was used to dye food, feathers, wood, fabrics, stones, etc.

The cochineal dye product has good technological characteristics and is therefore one of the most expensive, which makes it very difficult to obtain today.