Happy Sunday! I’ve been wrenching hard on a 1994 Jeep Grand Cherokee that hasn’t been on the road in eight years, and frankly, it’s been kicking my arse. As such, I haven’t had a ton of time to write weekend blogs, so here’s a short one about how I clean my hands when they’re covered in oil and grease.
Some wrenchers use rubber gloves when they work on cars, and frankly: I wish I were one of them. From a health standpoint, it’d be nice to not have lead-filled used oil and brake fluid and gasoline and all that leaching through my skin and into my bloodstream. But gloves ruin tactile feedback, and make it hard for me to know what’s going on in whatever blind nook and cranny I’m reaching into, so I’ve come to grips with the reality that in my old age, I’ll transform into something part-human, part-American Motors inline-six.
The result is that my hands get dirty a lot, and my brothers and mom regularly get on my case about how, really, I should wear gloves. Again, they’re right! But I lose all the feeling with that thin layer of rubber! I can’t deal with it.
[Ed note:
-MH]
Anyway, I’ve for years been trying various hand-cleaning methods, and I’ve narrowed down what works best. This is something that wrenchers are very opinionated about, so my solution may not be your favorite (you can tell me what is in the comments), but trust me when I say: It works really well.
For me, I use three products. First off, there’s Dawn Dish Soap. Yes, just regular Dawn, and no, standard-issue dish-soap doesn’t work as well.
I do find it bizarre how Dawn legitimately works better than the competition, because can’t the competition just copy Dawn’s formula? I’m sure some have, but most non-Dawn dish soaps just don’t seem to be able to get the grease and grime off my hands like that Bottle Of Blue can. It’s cheap, it’s readily available all over the place, it smells good, and you know it’s safe since it’s been used for a long time in kitchens around the globe.
The very best hand-cleaner I’ve ever used, though, is GoJo (or similar brands).
The key, here, is to get the original formula, and not the one with pumice in it. I realize how controversial this is, and I get how fun it is to have that gritty pumice rubbing between your hands, but the reality is that you’re basically trying to clean two smooth leather surfaces; smooth, pumice-free cleaner will work great. Now, there are very specific instances where pumice can help (like if you get RTV silicone stuck on your hands; the GoJo above probably won’t take that off), but besides that, it’s the smooth hand-cleaner that really works well for me. I mean, look at it go!:
I’m actually using Purple Power hand cleaner in the photo above; I find that it, Goop, and GoJo all work similarly well (though I prefer GoJo for no real reason).
What I like about these cleaners over Dawn is that they don’t require water to work. You can just have a can of GoJo in your toolbox, along with some shop towels (I love those blue ones above), and you’re pretty much all set.
Last but not least, there’s the fingernail brush, because grime will get under your nails, and neither Dawn nor GoJo will help extract it. You need something to get underneath those nails, and I (and I think most wrenchers) have found that a brush works best.
My hands are squeaky clean right now after having been filthy from tearing apart a four-liter Jeep engine last night. I can thank both Dawn and that Purple Power hand cleaner — along with those blue shop towels and a fingernail brush (I used an old toothbrush).
[Ed note: David made sure I put in Amazon affiliate links for these products because we might get a tiny commission from it. Seriously, these are like $10 for enough GoJo to last you, like, three Jeeps. So, yes, please click those links and get some GoJo and maybe a Roku streambar? Oh, you don’t need Roku streambar? Ok, fair enough – MH]