Best Hand Cleaner?

Like everyone else here, I have constant grease under the fingernails, and grit in my skin. However, going to a trade show with ground in grease/paint/dirt/etc. on my hands doesn't look so great. The best stuff I have found is Kresto, but it still doesn't get everything out, even with a stiff scrub brush. So what is the best stuff to get ground in grit off of your hands? Even Acetone didn't get anything out (It did take off Herculiner that wasn't dry yet).

This is what I'm talking about (it looks worse than the picture).

I use GOJO or GOOP, but it will take a lot to get the grease from under the nails.

I use them for everything. In the garage, at the sink, in the shower, in my hair, on my chest, along my butt crack... There are too many artificial ingredients in most soaps.

I've used sandpaper when I had to look clean and forgot to wear gloves...

Not good for everyday, or you'll have no skin left.

I use Permatex, but not nearly as often since I started wearing nitrile gloves when wrenching.

I have better luck keeping my fingernails longer while doing car work and then cutting them once I'm done with the work. I use Gojo hand cleaner, and use a scrub brush when it's really bad. Most times, though, I try to wear HF's blue nitrile gloves, so my hands don't get too dirty.

Forgot to mention, I do wear gloves (either the blue nitrile or latex). However, I don't always notice when they tear. Or sometimes I just need the dexterity to get at something.

I've used Goop and Fast Orange. Kresto is the best I've found.

I'll have to try sand paper. Will a belt sander work faster?

Goop orange, I keep a bottle in the shower. Gets enough of the grime off to look like a clean mechanic, but thats it. The rest usually comes off the next morning with some Irish Spring and a serious scrub. Ditto on the "let the nails get a bit long, then cut them right before you gotta be presentable". I keep my nails short, but will always trim them to get any gunk out from underneath before I gotta look nice.

As a wanna-be diesel mechanic, sometimes you are just gonna be grungy, thats the nature of the beast.

HF sells 7 millimeter and 9 milometer nitrile gloves that hold up better than the regular 5mm ones, but I usually just double up on the 5mm ones. I agree that it's tough to know when they rip, I have the same problem when I forget to double them up.

As a plus, the thicker HF nitrile gloves are fantastic for working in cold temps. I use them a lot when snowblowing, shoveling, and when I was doing car work outside in colder weather.

Find a hotel with a hot tub and poor supervision. Bring in a small bottle of Tide and let the warm water and suds do their magic. Don't try it if you or a friend own said tub.

I've had success with Lava.

DoctorBlade wrote: I've had success with Lava.

+1

Shotgun?

In reply to dj06482:

I'm not correcting you because I feel compelled to be right, because I always am.

It's cause mixing up "mils" and "Millimeters" and how people verbalize decimal inches that makes me verklempt.

• A millimeter is one thousandth of a meter. It's a hundredth of a decimeter, but no one ever uses those. It's .039" - say "thirty nine thousandths" or "a millimeter"

• A mil refers to 1/1000". A mil be a thou, and when talking to a machinist, there are no mils.

• In machinist speak every thing below an inch in thousandths, unless you're calling out stock thickness material. You may start with 1" plate - not "billet", plates are rolled from billet - but you're going to mill it to say, nine-hundred eighty-three thousandths, plus zero, minus 2 thousandths.

• .1= a hundred thousandths, .01 = ten, .001 = a thousandth, .0001 = a tenth .0007 = seven tenths.

And I tend to keep the gelatinous white kind as well as the big orange pump jug of the grit/citrus kind from Gojo.

GRM actually did an article on this a couple years back. As I recall, the most effective hand cleaner is...

Dawn Dish Soap and Coffee Grounds!

I've used this combination plenty of times and it's very effective.

N Sperlo wrote: I use GOJO or GOOP, but it will take a lot to get the grease from under the nails. I use them for everything. In the garage, at the sink, in the shower, in my hair, on my chest, along my butt crack... There are too many artificial ingredients in most soaps.

This.

Aside from Lava which I use currently, the stuff I use that gets the dirt out of the cracks of the hand is:

Oldschool Goop

With a nailbrush

Next time, if you anticipate this again, dry scratching you nails across a bar of soap. I think that's a Hint from Heloise.

Hand Lotion before you get dirty... Corn Huskers Lotion works great..

Or seriously.. Lotion up your hands good.. Then put on some latex gloves... Give it about an hour... That doesn't work.. sleep with them on..

Lifts most stuff right off...

First and foremost, I'm a guy. My hands are supposed to look like this. These hands are as at home holding a wrench or carrying a tackle box as they are holding my wifes hand. They are not lotioned, polished, creamed or buffed. They have calluses, scrapes, scars and stains.

And in my life, that has never hurt me appreciably. Anyone that is offended because these hands of mine so clearly show I work with them isn't worth my time. And at trade shows and the like, I get conversations going with clients because they realize when they look at these hands of mine that I do walk the walk, and talk the talk.

For cleaning these working hands of mine. Eating a greasy burger and fries cleans like nothing else. Seriously. For scrubbing, I've got a good short bristle brush that I wouldn't give up for anything. Most are far too soft bristled. Powdered laundry detergent is the best filthy hand cleaner I've found, but it will make you scream when you put your hands in the water. For the times I don't want that pain, I'll use a citrus cleaner. If I remember to use a pre-treatment, like Invisible Glove, it works well.

Nothing prevents or removes the grease staining on the edges of my nails and such.

wierd answer but honestly when just permatex ultra cherry isnt enough i was my hair and it gets whatever else out. but saying that makes it sound like my hair is gross now so ummmm ya

KATYB wrote: wierd answer but honestly when just permatex ultra cherry isnt enough i was my hair and it gets whatever else out. but saying that makes it sound like my hair is gross now so ummmm ya

Thats the funny thing about GOJO. It makes my hair really soft and it's mostly natural, so you don't have all that artificial E36 M3 going into it. Petroleum, animal (hopefully) fat, etc...

Dawn mostly. With a brush if needed.

For E36 M3 that needs some abrasive, I'll reach under the counter and add some powdered laundry detergent to the dawn.

Got a vintage case of Old Spice "Soap on a Rope". (Insert: Old Spice whistle). Does not clean that damn well at all, but the babe seems to really like it. Gotta do, what you gotta do.

Borax.

Comet mixed into a paste with Dawn, and coffee grounds.