Has anyone here developed a contact dermatitis to hand cleaners (degreasers) ?

[SumGuy]

When I was younger, I could handle any solvent or chemical with my bare hands. Used pumice soap bars (Lava?) to clean my hands. Gasoline or acetone or lacquer thinner - no problem.

Now in my 50's I've switched from the hand cleaner in the orange pump (citrus based?) to the white jelly-like hand cleaner (sort of feels like white lithium grease). It says it contains alloe and lanolin, but there must be something else in there that works so good at getting the crud off your hands.

But I know that the back of my right hand will bubble up and be itchy after using it, but I can't help it. Strange - it's only the back of my right hand (from the knuckles to the wrist). No other part of my right hand or right arm and no part of my left hand does this. It sucks, it takes a few days to go away, but if I'm in mechanics-mode for several days or longer on a project, I'm using this stuff a few times a day. If it bugs me enough I'll spread some cortizone cream on and it helps.

I'm pretty sure it's the hand cleaner that's doing this, not the grease or grime. The grime rarely contacts the back of my hand, but when you're cleaning your hands the cleaner will get all over your hands.

I've never worn mechanics gloves, don't like them, I've tried some, they're always too small / too tight.

Has anyone else developed this sort of condition?

 

[ripcord]

Lanolin is an oily substance found in sheep's wool and is a known human allergen that affects less than 1% of the population. Maybe that's what is causing you grief? If hydrocortisone helps reduce the symptoms, that would indicate it is probably an allergic reaction.

 

[Timmastertech]

Petroleum based hand cleaners kill my hand. When we used fast orange or gojo in the shop my hands would peel to the point that it was painful to wash them. We currently use Snapon redline hand soap or Kresto soap and my hands are just fine with it.

 

[ripcord]

I mostly clean my hands with liquid dish soap and a nail brush, but I don't work on cars everyday.

 

[spasm3]

I wear 9mil or greater gloves, sometimes if its a really greasy job, i scrape my nails across a soap bar before donning my gloves. Sometimes coat my hands with lotion before donning the gloves also.

I can't take care of patients with my hands looking like I'm a diesel mechanic.

I'm going to agree with above that is probably lanolin causing the reaction.

 

[spackard]

There is a horse soap, Orvus, that contains sodium lauryl sulfate, or SLS. It has a warning on it. But it’s really cheap. Sure enough, two years later I had to stop using it. Back of hands.

 

[SumGuy]

I switched to the white-jelly cleaner because the orange stuff was also killing my hand. I wasn't looking for aloe / lanolin. Just something different.

 

[HemiBenny]

It’s amazing what a bucket of water and DAWN dish soap will do. I fill a 5 gallon bucket 1/2 way and keep a small bottle of DAWN by it. It does a great job of cleaning all sorts of stuff off of my hands while not irritating them in anyway.
After several visits to the bucket and DAWN dish soap, dump the water and refill with fresh water.

 

[ripcord]

It’s amazing what a bucket of water and DAWN dish soap will do. I fill a 5 gallon bucket 1/2 way and keep a small bottle of DAWN by it. It does a great job of cleaning all sorts of stuff off of my hands while not irritating them in anyway.
After several visits to the bucket and DAWN dish soap, dump the water and refill with fresh water.

That's way too practical, LOL. We're BITOG folk, after all.

 

[ecotourist]

Sounds like you've developed a contact allergy (a Type IV allergic reaction) to some component of your hand cleaner. The only way to tell which one would be to do patch testing (a highly specialized test done by a few dermatologists or immunologists with an interest in occupational exposures).

If you can identify the component you're allergic to you could possibly find a product that doesn't have it.

A low tech approach would be to try other products, but that would be hit and miss.

 

[vavavroom]

Contact dermatitis and eczema are easily triggered by all sorts of compounds, whether they are natural or synthetic. It simply depends on a person's sensitivity and sensitization that may occur with repeated exposure, and it also depends on your genes. Dermatitis and eczema are often familial. Keeping skin from drying out can help prevent an outbreak. Dry skin is the most vulnerable, for example, loose elbow skin. Many people have psoriasis there because elbow skin is dry and chafing against tabletops, clothes, armrests, etc. There's funny word for elbow skin. Can't post it here.

 

[Dave Hess]

I use latex gloves anytime I use chemicals or change oil, clean things, etc…

 

[chemman]

I use nitrile gloves that I purchase from Costco and they are great at protecting my hands. The backs of my hands break out also with tiny fluid filled bumps if I use a lanolin containing anything more than once or twice over a several day period. I learned about the lanolin cause from a physician who witnessed it quite frequently when he was in the Navy and served on a destroyer.

By using the nitrile gloves, hand cleanup is much easier & quicker, and I can use less aggressive hand cleaners or even regular bar soap & a fingernail brush with complete success.

 

[SumGuy]

But why does this only affect the skin on the back of my right hand? Not my fingers, forearm, palm, not any part of my left hand?

Can contact dermatitis work that way?

 

[SumGuy]

I'm going to try this next time I clean my hands:

 

[SHOZ]

The orange citrus stuff really dries out my skin. There was a red ZEP cherry smelling cleaner that worked pretty good. I just use Dawn soap and if the hands are terribly dirty I wash the dishes!

 

[Cujet]

But why does this only affect the skin on the back of my right hand? Not my fingers, forearm, palm, not any part of my left hand?

Can contact dermatitis work that way?

Yes. It is an autoimmune reaction. That is a common location for such.

 

[97prizm]

When I was younger, I could handle any solvent or chemical with my bare hands. Used pumice soap bars (Lava?) to clean my hands. Gasoline or acetone or lacquer thinner - no problem.

Now in my 50's I've switched from the hand cleaner in the orange pump (citrus based?) to the white jelly-like hand cleaner (sort of feels like white lithium grease). It says it contains alloe and lanolin, but there must be something else in there that works so good at getting the crud off your hands.

But I know that the back of my right hand will bubble up and be itchy after using it, but I can't help it. Strange - it's only the back of my right hand (from the knuckles to the wrist). No other part of my right hand or right arm and no part of my left hand does this. It sucks, it takes a few days to go away, but if I'm in mechanics-mode for several days or longer on a project, I'm using this stuff a few times a day. If it bugs me enough I'll spread some cortizone cream on and it helps.

I'm pretty sure it's the hand cleaner that's doing this, not the grease or grime. The grime rarely contacts the back of my hand, but when you're cleaning your hands the cleaner will get all over your hands.

I've never worn mechanics gloves, don't like them, I've tried some, they're always too small / too tight.

Has anyone else developed this sort of condition?

While not hand cleaner, I looked like a blistered tomato after using the 9 ingredient "all natural " laundry soap. Have you tried a different type of hand cleaner? Pine-rite works very well and is a powder. My neighbor said lanolin made his hands itch.

 

[atlex]

I had mild undiagnosed dermatitis in the last few years from messing with cars and car parts and have pretty much resolved it now - I hope some of what I've done may apply to you:

I kept getting it from drying my skin out by washing my hands too often with soap (ocd) or excess contact with solvents (acetone/xylene and similar ) and also spending too much time in gloves my skin just didn't like when they got sweaty.

The first two were just washing the natural oils out of my skin...

I started to look for a weaker soap and started putting tallow on my skin out of desperation. The food-grade kind. Beef fat. It's amazing. Also I recommend frying with it (that's why I bought it originally.. and then tried it in a used-up chapstick ! never buying lipbalm again.. )

As for hand cleaning.. aka degreasing
Try find a pure glycerine soap (no perfume or anything) in powdered form and mix that with baking soda or salt and a small amount of water (enough to turn it into a paste?) as a hand degreaser. None of these things are toxic or particularly allergenic (glycerine allergy is ultra rare).

The trick is to wash as little as possible and never use alcoholic hand sanitizer that is the devil's brew for skin.

And then follow up with regreasing cough moisturising with tallow or (insert your own natural grease that works for you).

I mean you've got options if you follow my tallow idea: shmaltz, lard are all up for consideration and why not coconut or cocoa ? you need a single ingredient edible fat.

There are some things you just to do without gloves or forget to put gloves on to do...

As for gloves I've had luck with the orange knobbly kind but I change them _often_ to dry my hands. a pair stays on 5 minutes and then gets washed in soap on the outside and put aside to dry out while I put a dry pair on freshly dried hands. On a 'big job' I'll probably cycle through three pairs every 30 minutes. as one breaks or starts to look a bit worn out I'll switch in a fresh one.

 

[53' Stude]

When I was younger, I could handle any solvent or chemical with my bare hands. Used pumice soap bars (Lava?) to clean my hands. Gasoline or acetone or lacquer thinner - no problem.

Now in my 50's I've switched from the hand cleaner in the orange pump (citrus based?) to the white jelly-like hand cleaner (sort of feels like white lithium grease). It says it contains alloe and lanolin, but there must be something else in there that works so good at getting the crud off your hands.

But I know that the back of my right hand will bubble up and be itchy after using it, but I can't help it. Strange - it's only the back of my right hand (from the knuckles to the wrist). No other part of my right hand or right arm and no part of my left hand does this. It sucks, it takes a few days to go away, but if I'm in mechanics-mode for several days or longer on a project, I'm using this stuff a few times a day. If it bugs me enough I'll spread some cortizone cream on and it helps.

I'm pretty sure it's the hand cleaner that's doing this, not the grease or grime. The grime rarely contacts the back of my hand, but when you're cleaning your hands the cleaner will get all over your hands.

I've never worn mechanics gloves, don't like them, I've tried some, they're always too small / too tight.

Has anyone else developed this sort of condition?

Nope. I use only “grease monkey” pure lye and water soap with grits, crushed almonds and pumice and charcoal in it and tea tree oil. Bar soap from Blue Ridge Soap Shed, Spruce Pine NC. $6/bar that’s 6oz at least maybe more depending how it’s cut. Works awesome.