What Hand Cleaner?

Back in the old days after a day of working on cars or motorcycles there was nothing that would get my hands really clean...except for liquid chlorine bleach (the household variety). Even Gojo with pumice would not get it all out of the crevasses. Liquid bleach did an amazing job and left my hands soft too. Any cuts got disinfected. I don't know what the state of California thinks of washing with chlorine bleach but so far so good.
 
I second (or third, or...) Boraxo! Nothing else - other than the generic equivalents - works as well. The only exception is when I have a thick layer of oil or grease; then I turn to the waterless cleaners, usually followed by Boraxo. I have an antique Boraxo dispenser, but a repurposed "grated cheese" container works well.

One secret to getting Boraxo to work properly is to first wet your hands, only use a small amount of the soap, and when it seems time to rinse it off, just add some more water & scrub some more. I'm really glad that the shop where I used to work had a dispenser at the sink - otherwise I might never have discovered the versatility of the stuff. When you are done for the day, a quick follow-up with regular bar soap will rid your hands of the kinda sticky feeling that Boraxo leaves behind.
 
Wow, hadn't thought about Boraxo powdered hand cleaner in decades! These days I just use Dawn dish soap like many others here. But since I'm in the kitchen I put a squirt of Dawn in one hand and grab the salt shaker and toss some into the Dawn. The extra scrubbing power really helps.

And then an hour later my wife wants to know how the salt shaker got so dirty......;-)
 
I started just using the diluted dr. Bronners on dry hands while the water was warming up. It has a nice wetting ability that the dawn seems to lack. But the bronners didn't lift the heavier grease like the dawn, so I'd add a drop o dawn and it worked great, but I got tired of working out of two bottles...
 
Myself, for real ground-in dirt I've found there's nothing better than making pastry....

What I've discovered for bitumen adhesive (e.g. for shed roofing felt) is blue plastic gloves with a good squirt of baby oil in 'em, wear for 10-15 minutes while you drink a well-deserved beer looking like a weirdo then just wipe off with rag. Hands are soft as a baby's bum after, but smell better.

Dave H (the other one)
 
Cheeseking said:
Half dollar puddle of clean motor oil in your palm. Massage all the grease and dirt follow with a clean shop rag then wash up with regular soap and water. Beats all them fancy cleaners hands down.
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Yup! Have done the same thing myself for many years.

Sent from my SM-G360T using Tapatalk
 
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