I, too, have been a victim of my own carelessness with hot peppers. My husband loves hot salsa, and eats jalapenos plain with almost every meal. He once complained my salsa wasn't quite hot enough so I decided to oblige him with the secret addition of some habeneros. I cut one in half and put it through a garlic press, took it out and put it through again aloing with a piece of garlic to help push ALL the oil through I possibly could. No problem cutting or handling the peppers (probably because I do it on a regular basis and have developed a tolerance) but when I ran the garlic press under steaming hot water at the sink I accidentally inhaled a couple breaths of the steam and coated my throat and upper airway with the oil. I choked until I thought I would faint from lack of oxygen! When I didn't stop gagging and coughing my husband came in to see if I needed real help. When he saw what happened he almost passed out from laughing at me! We'll probably be laughing about it until we're too old to remember our names. Lesson learned here - no matter what you do to protect yourself during the preparation PLEASE be careful during clean-up. Don't let your guard down till you've cleaned up everything! And he loved the salsa!

Thank you, Thank you, Thank you to all who gave suggestions on how to stop the burn! I used waterless hand cleaner, alcohol AND grease cutting dish soap WITH hot water. THEN I put aloe gel on my hands. Now I am down to a slow burn instead of excruciating pain. I will NEVER cut peppers without gloves again!

what i did was this: after trying everything i just washed of with milk. that helps and also is good for post burning. also once when my nostrils where on fire i jumped into a pool for like 10 minutes it was fun and the chlorine removed the capsicum . 1 more question are there any other forms of hot materials beside capsicum like in hot paprika or is it the only hot substance known to man?

Unbelievable how much that hot pepper juice can hurt! After reading the posts here, I tried ketchup (not having tomato paste on hand). The ketchup has the advantage of also containing vinegar. Instantly I felt cooling, but after ten or fifteen minutes the hot tingling would begin again and continue to get worse. I rubbed rubbing alcohol into my hands, followed with bag balm, a very healing ointment available at most drug stores. That completely stopped the problem.

I prepared peppers last night; no problems. But woke up this morning with my fingers burning like crazy.

While reading this thread, I started sucking on one finger (as some have suggested). Amazing how much spice is still there. By the time I finished this thread, that finger wasn't spicy anymore.

So, now I have 9 more to go.
Thanks for the advice :)

Never Ending Hot Pepper Stories.
I can handle any kind of hot pepper. It does not botter my hands that much.
But if I forget to wash my hands right away with SOAP AND WATER, and touch accidentally
my other parts of body(mostly eyes ) then I feel the heat.

As already mentioned the hot stuff in peppers is some kind of oil. So good soap-n-water can wash it away.
But if your mouth, eyes, nose is on fire you cannot used soap-n- water.
Use sour yogurt, vinegar, lemon juice instead.
I think acids also desolve that hot oil.
To prevent that hot stuff from penetrating your hands' skin, take some cooking oil and rub it into you hands,
before handling hot pepper. Even a thin layer of oil can be a barrier, or can just absorb the
hot oil from pepper.
For me it is funny to wear plastic glove while cooking. Kitchen sould not be like a hospital. lol

STUPID ME!!!!!!! I WANTED TO MAKE A NICE SPICE 'SOFRITO' AND I BLENDED ALL KIND OF HERBS INCLUDING HABANEROS !!!!! I PEELED LIKE 13 OF THEM AND WITH MY BARE HANDS I STRIPPED THEM AND Even TAKE OUT THE SEEDS WITH MY HANDS HOURS LATER I BEEN IN A HORRIFIC PAIN,SWOLLEN AND CRYING OUT MY HEART!!!! I TRIED ALL ..PURE BLEACH,MILK ,VINEGAR,CREAMS,GERM X, ALOE VERA,LEMON JUICE,DEGREASE,ICE,HONEY,SUCKING ON THEM, YOU NAME IT..@!@@ AND STILL INTENSE PAIN.. TO THE POINT THAT FINGERS ARE SWOLLEN AND PAINFUL BURNING!! TO MUCH PAIN!! I GUESS I'LL HAVE TO WAIT UNTIL THE PAIN IS GONE...;(

The best thing i have found is MUD. Works very well and very fast. Much better than soap and water or milk or alcohol, etc. I think it is similar to how mud is used in spas or how charcoal absorbs chemicals.

Several years ago, my parents bought about 10-20 pepper plants, including a couple of habaneros. I was making a bunch of salsa (which ended up hurting my stomach for hours) and forgetfully scratched near my eyes. my eyes burned for an hour. Some spots around my eyes are scarred and still itch on and off every day.

Okay ... thanks to all that suggested remedies. I've tried them all today. The ONLY thing I found that works is MILK. COLD MILK. Hot water just opens the pores in your skin so it stands to reason the pepper oil will soak deeper. Therefore, COLD is better. I soaked in cold milk for 30 minutes and no more burn (except when I stick my hands in hot water). SIMPLE MILK! NOTE TO SELF: PURCHASE GLOVES (OR A COW)!

I was making Texas Caviar and decided to mix up all of the ingredients (including the chopped jalapeno) with my bare hands. I had no idea this would be such a problem! After much burning and reading through this thread... I can say that acetone works. Thanks the suggestions to try!

Seems like those little peppers need to come with big warning labels! =)

I was making chili and did not were gloves to chop up the jalapeno peppers. It wasn't until a hour after I chopped the peppers that my hands started burning. I used dawns, baking soda didn't work. I realized that I have hand Sanitizer it took out the buring almost instantly cause of the alcohol. I did have to do it a few times.

I cut five banana peppers having NO idea that they were HOT. As I'm getting them in the jar, my fingers start to burn...a burn that just gets worse and worse as time passed.

I tried just about everything that's mentioned in this post and more - fresh aloe, milk soak (felt great but didn't last), tomato rub, alcohol wipes, rubbing alcohol, mineral oil, dish soap, vinegar, baking soda, witch hazel, and a liberal dose of beer (taken internally!). All soothing, but the burn kept coming back.

My daughter read that some folks use WD-40. I sprayed a lot on my hands and made sure it got up under my nails. It didn't stop the burn right away but within a few minutes the burn became bearable and started to fade away.

I took a couple of benedryl that knocked me out like a light. Woke up this morning feeling slightly tender but no burn.

So, while it could have been just a matter of timing, it seemed like the liberal application of WD-40 cured me.

Need.help getting jalopena pepper juice out of my.eye

try murphys oil soap.... worked the first time

Work a blob of butter into your hands and fingers well, then squirt some dish-washing liquid onto that and work in well, then rinse with(comfortably)hot water. This works in the same way as a waterless hand cleaner(Goop or GOJO type). Don't wait until you've cut up 5lbs of pods, but clean your hands at least a couple of times throughout the process.

If you get it in your eyes try rubbing your hair on your eyelids it takes like 10 minutes of rubbing but it fixes it

OK, gloves for cutting peppers. What about for picking them? Will simply picking Bhut Jolokias or other super hots cause your hands and fingers to become contaminated to the point you would be in a world of hurt if you happen to subsequently touch your fingers to your eyes, mouth or other sensitive areas?

I've always just used dish-washing soap, though I've been a little more careful lately after going to the bathroom and having my junk burn for couple hours.

The first time I cut up fresh jalapenos, I scraped the seeds out with my finger nail. I didn't know that was a no no! My finger nails burned for 2 or 3 days! So, the next time I cut some up, I scraped the seeds out with a spoon and I had no problem at all. (I still did not wear gloves.) So last night, I cut up some peppers and scraped the seeds out with a spoon, just like before. The only difference this time was the peppers had been in the fridge for about a week, and the skin was starting to wrinkle. I didn't notice anything until 1:00 this morning, when the pain on the fingers and palm of my left hand woke me up! I thought I must have burned it my hand on a hot surface while I was fixing dinner. The pain was almost unbearable! There was no redness, it just burned like crazy! I finally remembered cutting up the peppers and realized they were the cause. So like a lot of people who have posted here, I googled "jalapeno pepper on hands", and found this forum. I tried almost all of the remedies posted. I didn't try the straight bleach. That just seemed too risky. Several things did seem to help. The vinegar, tomato juice, and milk all seemed to ease the pain. But, I think what made the most difference was washing several times with Soft Scrub With Bleach. I was finally able to go back to bed at 6:00 and get some more sleep. The next time my husband wants fresh jalapenos in something he will have to cut them up HIMSELF!

I read this in my search for help, "USE rubber gloves, NOT latex, the molecules of capsicum are smaller then the holes in the latex and will pass through.
believe me I learned the hard way... burning hands for 3 days.
I also use a grease/oil cutter like dish soap, since the capsicum is an oil, the dish soap will wash most of it out."

I made the mistake of using latex and the gloves let my hands get burned. I also used a hand towel to dry my hands after washing and I am convinced that the oil from the towel was reapplied with the drying process. Cold vinegar in a tall plastic cup kept me from crying but I couldnt sleep. When I took them out they started to burn again. Washed with lemon juice, washed and scrubbed with dish washing liquid and a brush, washed with vegetable oil, washed with alcohol, appiled aloe vera with lidicaine-no help, applied Solarcaine-no help. Soaking in cool cider vinegar made it tolerable. However, I didnt change the vinegar and wash in between. Now I read about the guy who used white cool vinegar, and actually saw the oils in the vinegarso I should have changed the vinegar after each soak. I was up till the wee hours in distress, glad that after the last scrubbing with the brush and dish soap I looked at the towel and realized that I might have been putting oil back onto my hands-duh! So next time I will use real rubber gloves, wash hands and use disposable paper towels for extra good measure.

Yup, I made the latex mistake myself.

Thought I was being all careful with my superhots, with my fancy gloves. Half an hour later I went to the bathroom.

You ever had 1 million scovilles on your crotch? Holy fark!

Cut peppers all the time with no problem in the US. I moved to Thailand and made a batch of salsa because it does not really exist here. Anyways, cut up all these thai peppers and my hand was on fire. After reading all these post I had to get creative with not having anything at my new apartment. I put my hand in a empty bag of Lays potato chip's. The fatty oils from the chips soaked up the pepper oil and my hand was better before I got done before getting threw the 100+ post in here.

Must say I enjoyed these stories. My wife was laughing her arse off about the post where Husband drove wifey around with her hand out the window.

Painful story, but interesting discovery...

I finally got around to making jalapeno poppers today. They were supposed to be mild, so I didn't bother using gloves. Well, I washed my hands after cleaning a few and went to the restroom. Needless to say, not even 10 minutes later the burn kicked in. And I thought these were supposed to be mild! I've used them in salads, salsa, and barbecue sauces, and they weren't hot at all.

Anyway, I tried everything.... dish detergent, lotions, shampoo, bodywash, cold water, hot water, salt, etc etc etc. Well, I finally found something that worked: wash with bodywash (or shampoo) that has menthol under warm water, dry, use rubbing alcohol, wash again under warm, then again under cold, apply conditioner (I used Dove Revival with pomegranate and some other mess), rinse under cold. The burn was gone!

Went back to cleaning the jalapenos, but used gloves this time. Well, half an hour later my hands started to burn like mad. I guess I still had capsicum on my fingers. So anyway, tried the same method again and sure enough the burn faded away. Still a little tingle, but hardly noticeable.

Just adding my two cents... and embarassment.

This is from Wiki (I alternated light scrubbing with a soft toothbrush, vegetable oil and dish soap, under running cold water - it did the trick):

"For external exposure, bathing the membrane surfaces that have contacted capsaicin with oily compounds such as vegetable oil, paraffin oil, petroleum jelly (Vaseline), creams, or polyethylene glycol is the most effective way to attenuate the associated discomfort[citation needed]; since oil and capsaicin are both hydrophobic hydrocarbons the capsaicin which has not already been absorbed into tissues will be picked up into solution and easily removed. Capsaicin can also be washed off the skin using soap, shampoo, or other detergents. Plain water is ineffective at removing capsaicin, as are vinegar, bleach, sodium metabisulfite, topical antacid suspensions, and other home remedies.
If ... ingested, cold milk is an effective way to treat the burning sensation (due to caseins having a detergent effect on capsaicin[59]). The burning and pain symptoms can also be relieved by cooling, such as from ice, cold water, cold bottles, cold surfaces, or a flow of air from wind or a fan. In severe cases, eye burn might be treated symptomatically with topical ophthalmic anesthetics; mucous membrane burn with lidocaine gel. The gel from the aloe plant has also been shown to be very effective."

I FOUND THE CURE...........
I have cut fresh peppers before, but this time my hands caught on fire! It was unbearable!!
A FRESH ALOVERA LEAF!! Took the pain right out. Your hands will fell hot, but its manageable heat, the aloe takes away all the pain.
I spent hours soaking my hands in....
1.Milk Bath 5.Malox
2.Tomato sauce 6.Lemonjuice
3.Clorox Soak 7.Vinegar
4.Dawn Dishsoap 8.Ice Bath
NONE OF THE ABOVE CAME CLOSE TO WORKING!!!!!
My daughter cut a piece of her Aloe plant, My husband peeled it, I rubed the Aloe slime on my hands and got INSTANT RELIEFE!

Good to know. Thanks for sharing.

juliesierra - Dawn didn't work for you? It always works really great for me, but, maybe I do it differently than most. I squeeze some out in my hand and treat it like hand cream, I rub and rub until it is completely absorbed, then I add water to rinse. It has never failed me.
Pam

I tried several of the ideas offered and finally figured capsasium oil must be similar to the oil of poison ivy. I went immediately to Ivyrest and then used Cortaid post ivy exposure cloths. Used the cloths, followed it with a good scrubbing of GoJo. "Broke" the oil chain with the poison ivy cleaner and cooled it with the Ivyrest.

One of the ,perhaps, oldest threads, running for some 7 years !!

Let me put my 2 cents in the hat here:

There are several issues here that have gotten all mixed up.

1) how to prevent the HOT PEPPER oil from getting into your hand. This is a PREVENTIVE measure. No doubt, wearing some kind of glove, Saturating your hands with some kind of oil, ... can work in most case.

2) You do not do (1) above. Obviously your hands are infected. Then there are 2 possibilities:
(a) your hands feel ok even without washing but the problem is if you touch your other body parts with your hands( like your nose, eyes,etc ...) then you'll have a problem. So lets call this CASE 2a: In this case you need to wash off your hands with something that can disolve the pepper oil off your hands. We know that the stuff that burns is some kind of OIL. So you have to treat your hands with something that will disolve and remove it. Any dgreaser can do this, to some extent. Oils also wash and dilute other oils. Have you tried to clean your greasy hands with motor oil ? It works. Then you use soap and warm water to remove the motor oil.
I personally after handling hot pepperes with bare hands, wash my hands with liquid soap(no water) first. I try to continue doing it and leaving it on for a couple of minutes. Then I wash it off with the warmest water that I can stand. Repeat if necessary.

CASE 2b: You handled hot peppers without any preventive measure and then your hand are burning BADLY. You may try above mentioned washing method, but SORRY, it might wash the residue of the stuff , but it is NOT going probably stop your hands from burning and itching. It is too late. Your body (hands in this case) are showing allergic reaction. The stuff has gotten into your system already. Probably, an itch cream or burn oinment can help. It all depends on the sensetivity of your body. We can all develop tolerance to this over generations and life time. I have seen in a documentary (I think it was Wrigley's Believe It Or Not) that is East Indian woman crushed Bhut Jolokia in her hands and then robbed it all over and inside her eyes, without showing any reaction. When an Indian infant is breast fed fed by her mother, that milk is already hot and spicy. That is how they develop immunity against hot peppers.

I got a Hob seed in my eye once. Not a good thing Wear safety glasses when dealing with super hots.Took some time to get the seed out Some things you never forget

Dilute Clorox solution has always worked for me.

I can personally vouch for the remedy recommended jwpopp (from wayback on Jun 10 2006).

I was spreading some Capzasin cream on my wife's shoulders (capzasin being the fiery component of pepper juice). A couple of hours later, I was awoken from sleep with burning fingers.

Following jwpopp's suggestion, I soaked my fingers for 10 minutes in a bowl of normal white vinegar and the relief is tremendous and sustained.

Yeah VINEGAR!

It is a good subject for the people who are a bit careless like me :-) I usually use glove when I do handling hot peppers sometimes I did not.

I use olive oil to wash my hands, I massage my hands for a few minutes and cleaned with paper towel and wash with soap again. It works for me.

Caelian

I hope I can help, so I may as well make this thread at least 9 years old.

My method was developed over many years and is 'hardcore' because I wanted something that will work FAST! Yeah - after years of cooking with hot peppers, and years of reading threads like this one, I did it again - seeding and veining jalapenos for jalapeno and lime jelly. Never really bothers my hands, so I forget about what happens when I forget and rub my eyes! Then (I guess I'm slow) all of the sudden I remember! "Oh yeah, every time I seed hot peppers with my bare hands it takes a LONG time before it quits burning my eyes, and other stuff, if rub them." It has been a couple of years since the last time I did it, so I couldn't remember the exact regime I do that works. So....... Googled 'how to get hot pepper sauce of hands' as probably most everyone posting here in the last nine years did. Memory gets jogged. Well, reading the post again, I always finally remember what works best for me.

First, I get nervous, thinking I will forget and rub my eyes more - and just as bad, sometime worse, haul it out with bare hands to take a leak. Actually, only the rubbing the eyes ever happens now, and only once each 'session' (I may be slow sometimes, but not completely stupid *anymore*). I think most of the posted remedies probably have some merit, but I now usually follow the same regiment. If you haven't read most of this 9 year thread, you probably won't follow the 'science' behind what I do, but each step is explained somewhere above as to how and why it works.

First, I just wash my hands good with Dawn (if I have it - Joy if I don't). Second, don't go pee or rub my eyes anymore. Third (don't really like doing this but it really helps), wash my hands in lacquer thinner or acetone, really well, followed by a good dish soap washing. Forth, wash my hands in straight bleach, and leave it on until my hands feel REALLY slick and 'oily', followed by another good dish soap washing. Fifth, wash my hands really well with vinegar, followed by another good dish soap washing. The 'science' behind my brilliant method is this: If you are going to wash your hands in something really poison, that will dissolve pepper oils (lacquer thinner or acetone), do it FIRST, so subsequent washing will get less toxic as you go. That's why I finish with vinegar. While, for me, this take away about 70% to 80% of the offending oil, there still remains enough to really burn my eyes if I rub them. So, as has been mentioned several times in this and other threads, I do one final thing as much as I can until I have go to bed or have something else I have do - and, for me, goofy as it may seem, it is the only thing that gets rid most of the last remaining pepper oil - SUCK MY FINGERS! Seems there is something in saliva that works different than all the other stuff. At first you get a bit of the burning sensation in your mouth - but if you're messing with hot peppers to start with, you probably like that. Since my next to final wash is with vinegar, I sometimes get a little 'hot pickle' taste to enjoy! Its about 30 minutes until most all oil is gone from the washing, and after that, with two to three hours of sucking my fingers, I can rub my eyes with only a little sensation. It will usually still burn just a very little bit, but compared from earlier, I'm smiling again - ear to ear! If you don't have all the products, I believe the most important is the bleach - do it few times washing well between, followed by the vinegar. GOGO and Fast Orange hand cleaner also help a lot. But, DON"T FORGET TO SUCK YOUR FINGERS to finish up!

If this doesn't sound too 'crude' and you are really burning, you just may want to give it a try.

Dave

Milk takes the heat out immediately. You can drink milk if you get some on your tongue or put it on your face if you touched it. Water makes it hotter ...as does sugar

Milk does not take away the burn as well as you might think. The funny thing about capsaicin is that it soaks into your skin. Wash with dish soap and get most of it off of your skin but the stuff that sinks in...it takes a while to go away. I de-seeded superhots without gloves and I tried everything to get it off including rubbing alcohol (remember capsaicin is alcohol soluable)but my hands still burned for three days.

ALWAYS USE GLOVES ; P I find with just using simple food prep gloves, the pepper oil still gets through... here's the low down: https://www.cayennediane.com/how-to-stop-hot-pepper-burn/

Capsaicin is oil soluble, so the easiest way to remove it is with oil. I use a little olive oil and rub as if washing my hands. Then a little dish soap or hand soap will wash off the oil and the heat....

If you got super hots on your hands, you can almost count on it still being there the next day no matter which concoction you use to wash it off. But, I agree, a rub down with a vegetable oil and then some dish soap to get rid of the oil is your best bet.

I would say, then learn from your mistake and use latex gloves next time but that would be very hypocritical on my part. My wife has about a dozen boxes of them all around the house and I certainly don't put a dent in her supply. You would think I would learn my lesson, but I don't.

I never wear gloves anymore, as I end up cutting the gloves, and then they are useless. Instead, I liberally apply oil (usually olive oil) to my left hand, which is the one holding the chilies, and I make sure that I keep that hand well oiled while handling the chilies. When done chopping, I wash the oil off of my hand, and the chili oils go with it. There may be a slight residue of chili oil, but it is minimal.

When preparing my Habanero sauce, which has a lot of grilled habanero chilies and other ingredients, I do wear glove, plus a swim mask and snorkel, to avoid breathing the fumes. I only make this sauce about twice a year, but it does require a well ventilated kitchen, as the fumes can linger.

If you do not like gloves, oil the hand that touches the chili instead. My right hand only touches the knife, and so it does not need to be oiled (or gloved).

SOUR CREAM! It worked almost immediately for my tongue and lips! After gutting some jalapeños with my bare hands, I washed my hands and didn't think anything else about it. Then I touched my lips and my lips and tongue started burning! I just put a little sour cream on my tongue and lips and rubbed it in. I'll never touch jalapeños without gloves again!!

I cut whole red chillies and deseeded them approx 10 hours ago. Finally the intense burning has stopped after trying a range of things in desperation.

I don't usually get burning hands like I did but next time would wear gloves. Fortunately I did not rub my eyes or anywhere else for that matter so I'm talking burning hands only but wow what a burn.

So this is everything I tried which didn't work at all:

Baking soda paste

Vinegar

Lemon juice

Dishwash liquid

Wash hands in nail polish remover

Rub oil on hands between washing

Oily hand creams

Gritty gardeners/ workman's soap

This is the only thing I tried that worked and it worked in ten minutes:

Handle a stainless steel kitchen utensil - I rubbed a spoon in both hands and the burning has totally gone.

Yea, it's called Hunan hand. As the voice of experience I will advise not to use the cheap latex gloves, get the better Nitrile Gloves.

No sense of adventure left in you people. C'mon, it's pepper season. LOL

Been there done that, more times than I can count.

I've tried many things over the years.

Gloves(whether latex or nitrile offer "some" protection, but when you're processing superhots for hours, the capsaicin IS going to penetrate).

I've tried butter, milk, oils, vinegar, soap...all with very limited cooling.

But last year, I tried something different. I used to just deal with the limited "cooling," but the heat really wouldn't subside until overnight. I still don the nitrile gloves, but now I actually wash my hands with just plain white vinegar. BUT... I don't rinse or dry it off. Instant relief, but there's still "some" warmth. So, I'll do it again about 15 mins later. All pain/heat pretty much dissipates within an hour.

My theory is that the capsaicin is not only on the surface of your skin, but has started to penetrate deeper layers. So, wash your hands with all the soap or oil you want...if you rinse it off, you haven't given it time to penetrate those other deeper layers.

Kevin

I am literally a living testimony of this.

I just chopped some really hot pepper and for the past 10mins my fingers were burning.

I just had the feeling honey would help, so i applied it on my fingers for like a min or two and washed it off with water at first then added soap after, it didnt remove the burns totally but i feel a lot better now.

Dont know how it works though or why it does.

I hope this was help

I tried ...
Soaking in milk.. there was relief because it was cold, but burning continued as soon as I removed my hands.
..Warm water to “open the pores” and scrubbing with dawn, alternating with rubbing olive oil into my fingers.
..soaking in vinegar and water
..soaking and scrubbing fingers with everclear
..baking soda
I did combos of all these and burning continued. I couldn’t go 30 seconds without needing ice water on my hands. Ended up sleeping in a recliner with my hands in a bowl of ice water. 14 hours later, pain was finally bearable. 24 hours later, still tingly but not in pain anymore.

I don’t know if anything I did even worked. Nothing worked fast, I’ll tell you that. I just had a baby 6 weeks ago, and let me tell you, this was worse.

None of this worked. I finally got relief by using aerosol calamine lotion. Two applications off that worked like a charm

This sucks, I bought a 135,000 scoville hot sauce me and all my coworkers tried it and I was pouring it for everyone. It got on my hands and now here I am at 2 in the morning after washing my hair and activating all of the oils that seeped deep into my hands at 8pm when I handled the hot sauce. WEAR GLOVES. This sucks