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Gloveless

October 30th, 2008 · 7 Comments

I refuse to use kitchen gloves when cutting hot peppers. I always wash my hands afterwards and scrub under my fingernails, but I never fail to touch my eyes and cause them to sting and water. What should I do?

Categories: animadversor

7 responses so far ↓

  • 1 abby added // Oct 30, 2008 at 11:23 am

    3 options
    1. Stop using hot peppers (or get pre-cut ones).
    2. Start wearing the gloves.
    3. Stop touching your eyes.

  • 2 dawn replied // Oct 30, 2008 at 9:42 pm

    you’re still one up on me. i’m always wondering why my eyes burn so badly…. oh, yeah….
    incidentally, i think you should go with the lavender stars for the gloves. very nice.

  • 3 timothy paul yenter replied // Oct 31, 2008 at 8:12 am

    Abby, we should definitely get you on the next MidEast peace negotiation trip. You’d be unstoppable.

    Dawn, if only everything came with lavender stars…

  • 4 mbw wrote // Nov 1, 2008 at 10:07 am

    Capsaicin is soluble in fat and alcohol. One remedy that I have heard works, but never tried (preferring the method of forgetting about it and then touching my face to hilarious results) is to rinse your hands in a very dilute solution of bleach. (Turns the capsaicin into a salt, salt is water soluble.)

  • 5 mbw responded // Nov 1, 2008 at 10:09 am

    But any alcohol-based or acidic remedy should work. Hand-sanitizer, lemon juice.

  • 6 Mike replied // Nov 5, 2008 at 1:58 pm

    I say just suck it up and be a man. Stop your cryin.

  • 7 andy added // Nov 5, 2008 at 2:19 pm

    I went the wrong direction and tried baking soda (base) water. I think I also had tried vinegar (acidic). But I don’t recall great results. Several days later under the fingernails there was still that slight “burn”.

    Incidentally I began to almost “relish” the pain. I found that if I sucked on my finger nail (did this discretely) that it would increase the burn. I started to look at it like there was a set amount of pain that must be “gone through” before it would leave. So I would try to trigger the pain stronger and stronger and savor every second of “purging it” from my system.

    Am I writing this stuff online?

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