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]
Try OLIVE OIL had an old bottle works great.
In most cases Dawn is my go-to cleaner, although I also have a tub o’ GoJo on the work bench. After many, many years I have finally come around to 7mil nitrile gloves if I’m working on something particularly grimy. However, I still prefer bare hands when I’m dealing with fasteners or small parts, and Dawn usually cuts the oil and grease with no trouble. An old microfiber towel helps get the residue out of my old, dry, cracked skin (and yes, moisturize after scrubbing).
Only the autopian could write up a story about washing hands and get 150+ comments. Well done David.
I might have to quote Metallica here and remind what fire is fought with…
Grease is best washed with… grease, if nothing else is available.
Good ole’ general purpose grease. The brown one.
Can’t vouch for fancy ones (lithium and whatnot), bit the old classic grease is one of the best to remove automotive dirt from hands.
Also, the process is an adventure in itself:
I was told by an old mechanic I worked with that JOY dish soap is the best. It does seem to work pretty dang good, even if the guy was an idiot. My buddy actually bought that Dawn powerwash stuff (the weird aerosol crap) JUST for cleaning his hands in the garage. I gotta say, I was deeply impressed. He didn’t even use water, just the powerwash and a shop towel.
At the end of the day though, GOJO is the absolute best I’ve used, and is pretty dang cheap.
Having had to do an unfortunate amount of dirty automotive work unplanned (mostly tire changes) in parking lots, the GoJo stuff in public bathrooms prior to the automated foam style dispensers they use now did very well for me.
Back in the day, I had coveralls which were big enough to go over whatever I was wearing and rubber/vinyl gloves I kept in the back of my daily drivers in case I had to do something dirty when dressed for work. Never actually had to use it, though.
The right soap will greatly reduce reliance on brushes, save for the fingernails.
Amazed – shocked! – that such a grease geek would not mention the absolute best way to dissolve grease and oil away, especially in the fingernails and tight spots, “the spaces in-between”, as Rivers Cuomo would say. (But the, “two smooth leather surfaces” comment is about the most David-Tracey-filled slice of casual written genius I could have asked for, so I’m good.)
So, what is this best next step after the Dawn-Goop-Lava-Whatever? Fresh Citrus! Cut a lime, lemon or orange in half and dig those fingernails in it like Catherine Tramell in the Basic Instinct poster. (Sorry, I’m a bit gray with the pop culture references.)
Best part for DT is that you can now just grab a bunch (rust free!) from your – or a neighbor’s – tree.
You really wanna get shit off of your hands use Dawn Powerwash. My girlfriend got a bottle of it when I was building her motor and I have never seen shit come off of my hands that fast.
Even though it has since been bought out by Permatex, I still favor DL hand cleaner. I think its the smell of nostalgia that keeps me coming back. They always had a jar of this stuff in the office john next to the shop on the Estate my Father worked on, and I’ve been using it for years.
Nothing takes me back to my youthful summers spent painting houses like the smell of DL. I can’t find it any more.
https://www.amazon.com/Permatex-01013-Label-Cream-Cleaner/dp/B000HBIAGS?th=1
I dont think its the exact same formula, but with my fading memory its close enough.
Edd China sells his own line of gloves because he found unacceptable levels of petroleum distillates in his blood…..I, OTOH, have never worn gloves of any kind on my poor hands, including washing parts in the solvent tank or getting completely greasy changing CV joint boots! I can just imagine what my blood chemistry looks like after more than 50 years of this…..
Oh, and Goop is also good for getting grease and oil stains out of your clothes, just rub some into the stains before you put your greasy clothes in the washing machine and it’s like you never wore them to lie on a piece of cardboard under a greasy oily car!
Grease under your nails is something to be proud of and worn like the badge of honor it is. “Yes, I worked on a Jeep 4.0 all night. Yes, I’m comfortable with that.”
Yep. I’m a blue-collar person in a white-collar job. I fix sh*t at home and at work. That’s why you love me. (Speaking to people at work.)