best remedy for pepper burn
 

Yes, they say, wear gloves... but we all make mistakes. :oops: I was getting seeds from some ripe Pasilla peppers this morning and I didn't bother with gloves. I didn't think they were terribly hot, and washed the sticky juice off immediately with hot water and soap - or so I thought. Many hours later my thumb and finger started to burn pretty bad. :surprised::panic:

I read about treatments for capsaicin burns online, and tried fresh lime juice - it worked pretty well right away, with a few repeat applications as it wears off a bit.

So, hot pepper lovers, what's your standby treatment for a burn?

When you cut up hot peppers, what's your protocol to quarantine the pepper juices, and cleanup afterwards your hands and tools? Soapy water alone doesn't seem to be working for me. :evil:

Lick your fingers! Works great!:twisted:

But for those feint of heat and sensitive of nerve endings, wear gloves. And before you put on those gloves wash your hands with plain ol ivory bar soap 99.9% pure, Get a thick soapy lather but don't rinse. Let the soap dry as a film on your hands. You won't even notice it but it will be an effective barrier against practically anything. When you are done wash it off and away goes the pepper juice with it.

It's actually an old printers and mechanics trick for cleaning up after work, but Mom uses it when canning horseradish or hot peppers. Personally I never had much of a problem with hot peppers, but horseradish will seriously burn you.

I don't use the super-hots but regularly use jalapenos and other medium-hots and the occasional rocoto. I don't use gloves, but just try to be careful slicing or chopping. Before washing my hands, I grab a glob of butter(which is always on the counter in an old covered sugar bowl)and rub it into my hands and especially my fingertips, then I squirt on dishwashing liquid and rub that into the butter, [I]then[/I] I wash my hands with comfortably warm water. The fat helps lift the capsaicin from the skin, then the soap and water can wash it away.
Soapless hand cleaner(Goop-type)will work in a similar fashion. But I always have butter on the counter and dishwashing liquid in a pump container on the sink so my method is quick.
Also, if I'm using a lot of pods(like for poppers), I'll clean my hands about half-way through the process so I don't get too much juice soaking into my fingertips.

Pepper Joe (pepperjoe.com) says this, " Wash up with dish detergent and water when your pepper processing is complete, and be careful to remove the gloves without touching the parts that came in contact with the peppers. If you do accidently let your hands get in contact with the hot peppers, soak them for a few minutes in a cold milk and salt solution. The cold milk soothes the skin, and the salt helps draw out the pepper oils. Use about 1 tablespoon of salt per cup of milk, gently massaging the salt into the affected areas and finishing with a cool-water rinse."

I must admit I was impressed with the number of remedies reported online that are foods, including cooking oil, fresh tomato, ketchup, lime, and all kinds of dairy products, not to mention alcohol (liquor as a solvent for capsaicin).

Last night, as I was considering using cream cheese to dress my finger burns, I couldn't help wondering whether the cheese 'dressing' could be bandaged with something appropriate, filo pastry maybe, or even resort to a cooked lasagna noodle for the wrap....:D A little seasoning with lime juice and tomato sauce wouldn't interfere with the intended burn care.

This way of course I could follow RedBaron's advice, and lick my fingers very well if the bandage didn't work on the burn. :yes:
Then follow up with a quick soak of the fingers in brandy - which should then be drunk down, for maximum benefit in general pain relief.:lol:
Seriously though, I'm still working on the overall capsaicin residue grand cleanup and purge, since I treated it so carelessly and my fingers are still glowing. Now I'm wondering what about wooden cutting boards - can I really get all capsaicin off it, or should I retire the board and stick to glass or ceramic for future chopping?:?:

For peppers I use a small plastic cutting board or a plastic cutting sheet that can be cleaned using my butter/soap method.

It is highly recommended that men not go to the bathroom while working with hot peppers.

Using ivory soap as a barrier is a nice trick I had not thought of. I highly recommend using latex gloves but caution that latex is permeable to capsaicin. I have used vaseline on my hands followed by putting on gloves which is 99% effective at keeping capsaicin from my skin.

After I finish working with the seed, I wash my hands carefully with dawn dish detergent, then follow up with tomato juice mixed with lime juice 2:1 which takes care of the rest of it. Be sure to wash under fingernails very carefully. I've had capsaicin hang out under mine for a week if I did not clean them properly.

If the above does not do the trick, I wash my hands with pure household bleach. A tablespoon of bleach rubbed thoroughly onto your hands for about 2 minutes is the maximum length of exposure. If you have thin skin to start with, you might have to cut it to less than a minute.

Last but not least and only suggested as a drastic measure, I have used gel type drain cleaner. The commercial types are heavy alkaloids which rapidly dissolve oil and grease. They also dissolve skin and are highly dangerous if you get the stuff in your eyes. If you know you have been exposed to concentrated capsaicin, this will remove it, but only if you use it before the capsaicin penetrates the skin deeply. As I said, this is a "drastic" measure. It won't help if several hours have passed since capsaicin exposure and the stuff has penetrated your skin.

Unfortunately, I found out that even with a lot of precautions, it is possible for a stray seed to land on bare skin. This can be extremely painful depending on where it lands. I recommend wearing long sleeves and full length blue jeans when working with super hot peppers. They are extremely dangerous to children so don't let kids play where they might get into the peppers or the seed.

DarJones

I would never ever recommend draino for washing off capsaicin :no:

Not in a million years.:no:

Those products can cause a serious chemical burn.

Capsaicin burns and hurts but the real damage to tissue is minimal. It simply lights up the nerve endings, it doesn't actually kill cells. That's why Police and military use pepper spray as a non harmful, non lethal way to subdue criminals. At one time my Dad was taking pure 100% purified capsaicin capsules to help his heart condition. The stuff may burn but it doesn't really harm you. If fact it can help open up vascular system etc.... You sweat cry etc... but don't get harmed at all!

Draino can EASILY harm you! That cure is FAR worse than putting up with the burning sensation caused by capsaicin! I wouldn't even consider it!

As far as the ivory soap barrier goes. It works under fingernails too. Just "claw" the wet bar of soap when you make the barrier This fills the area under your nails with soap too. Then wear your latex gloves and any capsaicin that manages to penetrate the gloves will be blocked by the dry ivory soap film. Try it next time. It works. It works for pretty much any project that gets your hands dirty with something hard to clean off. Oil and grunge on a mechanics hards, Printers ink on a printers hands, Paint on a spray painters hands, Wood stain, and yes capsaicin on your hands when processing peppers. My Dad started out as a printer Mom processed thousands of jars of hot peppers, and I was a ships engineer/mechanic for years. That trick my Dad taught me 40 years ago works.

Wearing long sleeves is a good idea though. You can put the soap barrier all the way to your elbows and then wear long sleeves so any splash that does happen to hit your shirt will still be blocked by the soap and washed right off.

DarJones, I hear you on the fingernails and stray seeds. My afterburn was definitely due to using my nails to pick the seeds off the pith of those juicy peppers and getting the juice right under my nails. In today's Grand General Official cleanup I found pepper seeds everywhere - the floor, the counter, even inside a cupboard. :shock: I had to mop up after sweeping up just to make sure I'm not tracking the stuff around.

I am never ever growing superhots.:( So unfit for it.

Dar, it seems that the capsaicin level must be a QTL, or we wouldn't have varying heat of peppers, although afaict from reading about it, they say the production of capsaicin is dominant over not producing it. I really like mild hot peppers, and I'd consider it a worthy objective to breed them. What do you think about those chances?

I have pretty good luck with shaving cream.

You know how they say don't drink water when you eat hot peppers to cool off your mouth? But to drink milk?

I worked with 'Aromatherapy" and some of those essential oils can cause some chemical burns too. One of the things recommended was milk- not skim - but full fat milk or cream to get the chemical to stop burning. It works too.

Also, it is true that latex gloves are permeable to capsaicin. Vaseline will also break down latex.

Get vinyl gloves.

I like the Ivory soap shield idea a lot.

I'm not found of the hot hot peppers, but putting a shield on your hands is a great idea for a lot of things. I know the hair dresser puts it around my face and ears before she applies hair color to my hair to be sure it wipes off easily.

Inheritance of heat in peppers is a complex trait. The production of capsaicin is a dominant trait, but the number of placental glands is recessive. In other words, if you cross a hot pepper with a sweet pepper, the offspring will always be hot peppers. But to get from a hot pepper to a super hot pepper, you have to do some inbreeding and selection to increase the number of glands.

DarJones

Neem oil straight on the skin, it is an overnight wonder.

I seeded and chopped enough to fill a couple of gallon jars of superhots yesterday, so this topic is near and dear to my heart.

If I do a small number of peppers with soap and gloves I'm pretty good, but doing 10 pounds of superhots at a whack at the end of the season nothing seems to prevent it. Gloves start breaking down and my hands sweat through the soap. Last year I double gloved and changed the outer gloves frequently, but you lose some dexterity like that. The burn on my hands I can take, but the touching other body parts makes me cringe for a day or two.

If you're looking for the flavors of the chinense peppers without the heat, the Caribbean seasoning pepper varieties have a lot of options for that.