Young Writers Society

Fourteen is definitely not too old for chemistry sets. I got my first set when I was sixteen, and it was only because I saved up for and bought it myself.

My sister, on the other hand, got one when she was ten as part of the new school curriculum. I was so jealous.

Depending on the kind of set you get, it can be geared towards a specific experiment or more general usage. My sister's set was geared towards specific science experiments she was doing throughout the school year.

My set was more general since I already had a decent background in chemistry, and the very first thing I did with it was clean it. Thoroughly. Contamination is very bad when you're doing chemistry experiments, and if your character loves her chemistry, cleaning her chemistry set will be a painstaking labor of love and thoroughness.

After that, the first chemistry-chemistry thing I did with it was make nylon. Because I could.

My mother did not approve. Particularly when it came to disposing of everything.

But anyways. My set was pretty unusual since I bought it to do a fair amount of supplemental experimental work for my classes, and most chemistry sets I see kids with don't include a complete distillation apparatus.

Some of the more typical things are various flasks and beakers, stirrers, boiling chips, a thermometer, gloves, goggles, and the reagents necessary for the intended experiments. Beginner kits will be made mostly of plastic, but the quality ones will be almost all glass because glass is so much easier to clean completely than plastic, plus you don't have to worry about accidentally dissolving your container because you forgot that a particular reagent easily dissolves other organic compounds, of which plastic is one.

I may be speaking from personal experience about that latter point.

I never had something like that.

BUT!

I probably would have used it to melt things.