White powdery skin

Hi. The skin on my hands has started turning bleach white and powdery, especially in between my fingers. I think it's probably just because I've been overwashing them with soap and water, because of my contamination fears, but I also have a bit of an obsessive fear of dangerous chemicals (although I still use thm to clean) and I'm really worried I may have done something terrible to my skin with disinfectant or bleach.

I was cleaning with an antibacterial spray today and, as it had got to near the end of the bottle and the spray wasn't working any more, I took the lid off and poured the last tablespoon or two in the sink and on the draining board and used it to clean it. I'm now worried that this meant I used far too much of the undiluted cleaning fluid and that this may have been a health risk.

Hi there

I had this white powdery stuff on my hands and it turned out to be caused by dove hand cream of all things! Have you been using this? After you have washed your hands do you use a hand cream because they could be very dry.

Els

It might be dry skin, use gloves when you're using cleaning products.
Try a sugar scrub to get rid of the dry skin n maybe E45 cream n a very gentle non drying hand wash for hand washing.

Thanks both of you. I put on industrial quantities of hand cream last night and it's a lot better this morning, although still very dry in places. I also keep thinking I can still smell the cleaning fluid on them, even though I know this is impossible. I'm guessing if it was a chemical burn, it would be a lot worse.

You're right about using gloves and finding a less harsh hand wash. I'm also trying to stick to more gentle cleaning products which I know are non-toxic. Ultimately, I think I'd rather die of e-coli than chemical poisoning.

It sounds like you just have very dry hands. My house gets cleaned from top to bottom every weekend and I find that after using various detergents, bleaches and having my hands in hot, soapy water, they do exactly the same thing. I have to use alot of hand cream for a couple of days before the moisture returns. Keep moisturising! xx

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Originally Posted by blackbroom

Thanks both of you. I put on industrial quantities of hand cream last night and it's a lot better this morning, although still very dry in places. I also keep thinking I can still smell the cleaning fluid on them, even though I know this is impossible. I'm guessing if it was a chemical burn, it would be a lot worse.

You're right about using gloves and finding a less harsh hand wash. I'm also trying to stick to more gentle cleaning products which I know are non-toxic. Ultimately, I think I'd rather die of e-coli than chemical poisoning.

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You're highly unlikely to get e-coli or anything of the sort from not using enough cleaning products, as long as your food is in date and stored properly. It sounds like you're cleaning it daily already anyway. And you should see the absolute pig-stys on How Clean Is Your House and similar, and those people are all still alive somehow. :)