After over 40 plus years of working in the garage on my vehicles, I have tried lots of “hand cleaner”… the commercial can with the pasty stuff, Fast Orange (when my garage is 100 degrees F it just liquefied), liquid soap, Lava bars, paint thinner, MEK, carb cleaner, brake cleaner..etc.. I never used gloves until I turned 50 years. My old tough calloused hands got thinner skin and I’d be breaking blood vessels and thrashing them until they looked like bloody chopped liver. I could never get them clean, even with a brush scrubber.
When I started this rebuild I bought several boxes of Harbor Freight Nitrile 5 mil and 7 mil gloves and used several boxes of them already.
I very seldom work on truck without nitrile gloves now.
In the garage, to clean my hands – BEFORE going into the house - I use Walmart’s cheapest spray cleaner – Greased Lightning - and old t-shirts. I have carried a tube of Walmart’s cheapest hand lotion in my trucks for years, and used it in the sand dunes for 8 years during my sandrailing days. It works great for cleaning grease or gas off your hands, or while on the trail and you don’t have any way easy way to clean your hands when they get greasy, sticky, dirty, or just after a potty stop. It helps them from dying and cracking.
If you want to use the very strongest off the shelf soap, it is dishwasher gel soap – like Cascade. Try it next time you clean your glass coffee decanter.
Gnarls.
