Cookaholics Bulletin Board

I prepare a fair number of dishes which involve seeding hot peppers. While it's a good idea to use gloves to do this, it's not always practical -- for one thing, I don't keep a box of plastic gloves next to the counter. It also feels very wasteful.

However, this leaves me with the issue of getting capsicum off my hands after I'm done with prep (after one notable incident, I'm denied the marital bed until my hands are clean of hot pepper). The question is, how? To date, nothing I've tried really works. This includes:

• Dish soap (multiple washings)
• Hand soap (multiple washings)
• Lanolin oil soap (Goop)
• Lemon juice
• Vinegar

The interwebs are full of various bizarre housewifely suggestions on how to clean off the capsicum, but I've yet to see anything which looks practical and likely to succeed. Has anyone here found a hot-pepper hand cleanser which works consistently?

How about using a reusable glove? They make latex gloves for colorists that can be washed and used multiple times. These even come 10 to a pack, so if one pair is banished from the marital bed, you still have four other pairs to go to.

Or, you might try alcohol to clean your hands.

Just occurred to me that Tecnu (for poison ivy) might work. But I use a latex glove when handling really hot peppers (habanero, not jalapeno).

Good thought Pete. I've got some Tecnu, so will give that a try.

Amy

I use gloves when I deal with capsicum. I have found that rubbing my hands over the stainless steel sink can help, although I have no explanation as to why. I get a large box of gloves fro the restaurant supply store and it lasts a long time and the cost per glove gets pretty cheap. Certainly cheaper than the loss of marital affections.

As they say..."Waste not, want not"

Some choices really are not as hard (pun intended) as we make them...

Since Capsaicin is lipophilic, scrubbing your hands with organic first cold press Arbequina extra virgin olive oil and a stiff brush before moving on to detergents and hot water may help.

Oiling one hand-preferably the one that is not wielding a blade-before handling the peppers may give the Capsaicin something to bond to besides skin oils and make the removal process easier.

Outside of marital issues, removing contacts can be quite a bother too. Once I ate some wings at some joint that would give them to you free if you could eat them (I was younger then). I also discovered in that incident that going to the washroom 'hands free' is the best idea, as even three washings of the hands was insufficient.