A quick, cheap & easy way to get gasoline off your skin.

Sometimes when handling gasoline containers you wind up with gasoline on your hands, feet, or face.

Gasoline will penetrate the skin, and take all kinds of chemicals you don't want with it. And it'll blister you, as well. Some people are very sensitive to that.

The faster you get it off, the better. But soap and water just don't do the job very well. I've washed my hands six times after getting leaked on, and could still smell the gas left on my skin afterwards.

So here's a quick & easy way to get it off of your skin: Rinse/wipe with ordinary rubbing alcohol.

It will pick up the gas and carry it off instantly. One good rinseish/wash with isopropyl alcohol and you probably won't even be able to smell the memory of the gasoline. Do it twice if there was a lot of gasoline on you, or any trace of the smell remains.

Do it three times if you hate getting splashed with gas as much as I do.

Rubbing alcohol is cheap.

I suspect (haven't tried it) that a good wetting with rubbing alcohol, followed by a solid rinse with water will pull gasoline out of clothing, as well.

That's always good to know if your socks got sloshed, right along with your boots.

After inventing this remedy in a moment of need preceded by a moment of stupidity, I checked the Internet and found that many others have been at least as clever (or desperate) as me.

(Link removed: I copied & pasted the wrong one.)

(Added) Once I noticed my mistake with the (commercial product) link, I went back and tried to find the one I meant to paste. No luck.

That put me on an Idiot Tour of the Internet, where I quickly found out that most of the "remedies" for removing gas from your hands are copycat reposts of each other, and almost all of the rest were simply posted by idiots.

Things like using another substance to hide the smell--as if that would fix the problem, rather than just the symptoms.

Internet posts that say "If X doesn't work, try using rubbing alcohol" are probably posted by people that never tried either "X" or rubbing alcohol.

The relatively rare posts that are valid point out that alcohol is an organic solvent--which is why it can absorb the gasoline.

So when you flood you hands with alcohol, the gas is picked up and carried away. Then, after a water rinse, any remaining alcohol is washed away. But even with just air-drying, nothing significantly harmful is left on the skin.

Other things do work, including lemon juice and tomato juice. I've used them. But neither work as well as rubbing alcohol.

Sigh. Long day. I think I'll drink some alcohol.

 

I use it for mosquito bites also!

 

My daughter used to get swimmers ear. Pouring a cap of alcohol in and then draining it pulled the water out and dryes the ear canal out faster keeping her from hurting.

 

And poison Ivey and sumac.

 

I use it as a general cleaning agent. I know it won't mar finishes.

 

Didn't know that I use vinager and soda for general cleaning. I do alcohol to remove the adhesive from jars I wanna reuse and such.

 

Also good to dry out wet elecronics such as cell phones, etc. Most all pc boards are cleaned while in process using isopropyl alcohol, so no harm should come to them or the components. Do NOT substitute methanol or denatured alcohol.