Stained hands

[100tific]

Good morning,
I'm probably getting a lot of hate for not being careful, but sometimes these things happen. A drop falls, the glass stains...
and without realizing it, with my bare hands, without protection, I touch something that isn't clean.
I haven't found anyone on the forum talking about this. I don't know if you're all extremely careful, but when you're in a hurry and work with many batches, some carelessness can happen.
I wanted to ask if you had a method for cleaning those terrible stains that remain when you touch a liquid like silver nitrate, or something with gold, that when exposed to light, the stain remains black.
Normally, if the stain is silver nitrate, I use iodine tincture and then wash them with ammonia, and it comes out. But this time I think I got stained with something that had gold on it. They're also dark, but instead of being completely black, they're more of a purple color. I'd love to be able to clean them so I can look pretty on the weekend, but I don't know what to use to prevent my hand from getting rid of the stain. I thought maybe someone has solved this problem before.
Don't give me too much trouble about safety. I promise I'm careful and wear protective clothing most of the time. Accidents just happen.
Thank you.

 

[goldshark]

Good morning,
I'm probably getting a lot of hate for not being careful, but sometimes these things happen. A drop falls, the glass stains...
and without realizing it, with my bare hands, without protection, I touch something that isn't clean.
I haven't found anyone on the forum talking about this. I don't know if you're all extremely careful, but when you're in a hurry and work with many batches, some carelessness can happen.
I wanted to ask if you had a method for cleaning those terrible stains that remain when you touch a liquid like silver nitrate, or something with gold, that when exposed to light, the stain remains black.
Normally, if the stain is silver nitrate, I use iodine tincture and then wash them with ammonia, and it comes out. But this time I think I got stained with something that had gold on it. They're also dark, but instead of being completely black, they're more of a purple color. I'd love to be able to clean them so I can look pretty on the weekend, but I don't know what to use to prevent my hand from getting rid of the stain. I thought maybe someone has solved this problem before.
Don't give me too much trouble about safety. I promise I'm careful and wear protective clothing most of the time. Accidents just happen.
Thank you.

Things happen, thank God it wasn't worse. Wearing the proper material gloves are the basic PPE, as you know. Hurrying is the biggest cause of mishaps. Multi tasking will generally give a higher percentage of mishaps, strictly based on statistics, and the inability to focus on the given task 100%. Slow and steady wins the race. No hate here, thanks for sharing the mishaps, so others will learn. I have never experienced anything other than a minor Nitric stain, so can't help with your staining. Maybe others can chime in if 100tific has a serious medical condition.

 

[Yggdrasil]

Good morning,
I'm probably getting a lot of hate for not being careful, but sometimes these things happen. A drop falls, the glass stains...
and without realizing it, with my bare hands, without protection, I touch something that isn't clean.
I haven't found anyone on the forum talking about this. I don't know if you're all extremely careful, but when you're in a hurry and work with many batches, some carelessness can happen.
I wanted to ask if you had a method for cleaning those terrible stains that remain when you touch a liquid like silver nitrate, or something with gold, that when exposed to light, the stain remains black.
Normally, if the stain is silver nitrate, I use iodine tincture and then wash them with ammonia, and it comes out. But this time I think I got stained with something that had gold on it. They're also dark, but instead of being completely black, they're more of a purple color. I'd love to be able to clean them so I can look pretty on the weekend, but I don't know what to use to prevent my hand from getting rid of the stain. I thought maybe someone has solved this problem before.
Don't give me too much trouble about safety. I promise I'm careful and wear protective clothing most of the time. Accidents just happen.
Thank you.

Well, everyone that handles Silver Nitrate will at some time get these dark blueish black stains.
Thankfully they are not dangerous, but they give a reminder of the "invisible" stuff we handle.
I do not believe Gold gives stains, but maybe you had skin abrasions or small scratches in your shin that made them go deeper.
Some time ago I worked at a place where we used something called invisible gloves.
It was a lotion/creme that stuck very well to your hand as a protective film.
Of course under the gloves.

Anyway as long as you have not worked with anything nastier than Gold or Silver in acids I'm not sure there is a reason to worry.

And using other chemicals like Ammonia and Iodine to fix stains may be worse than leaving it alone.
Maybe the effect of these on the skin are what is causing the stains to go deeper?
After all they are relatively caustic and removes the subcutaneous fatty acids that protect your skin.

 

[100tific]

 

[Yggdrasil]

View attachment 67560

Looks like Silver

 

[goldandsilver123]

Purple stains are gold; yours looks like gold and silver.

In the forbidden texts you will encounter recipes to wash your hand with cyanide, needless to say that I do not recommend this.

Personally I just let it fade on its own.

 

[Yggdrasil]

Can't find anything regarding purple stains from Gold.
When melting Gold on the other hand purple staining of the melting dish is common.
The Silver Nitrate stains start as a purple violet hue that gets progressively darker.

At lest as far as I have seen.

 

[100tific]

These have been there for two days. I know they're not just silver because, as I told you at the beginning, I usually use iodine and ammonia from the supermarket to clean them, and they come off easily. I did it this way, and they didn't come off. The silver ones also turned black, and these have a purple hue.
Of course, I won't use cyanide to clean them, but thanks for the info.

 

[goldandsilver123]

There's a House M.D. episode on gold purple stains

It doesn't look like gold on the episode, but gold really stains purple

 

[Marcel]

I have a lot of transparent plastic bags from my old company. If I am sometimes in the middle of something and forget to put on gloves, I slip my hand into one of them and handle glassware, etc., with it. It’s quick to put on and take off, inexpensive, and reusable many times.

Maybe you've seen something similar in a bakery, where workers slip in and out of such a 'glove' because they have the same issue: they need to handle many different things, like I have to search Google, then decant some solution, etc. and can’t always put gloves on and off for each activity.

I think the human nature is so that it considers putting on tight gloves requires some time and is only worth if you work on the same activity for a longer period of time. Whenever we "only want to put a beaker from one spot to another" these 3 seconds seem not to be worthwhile putting on and off thight rubber gloves for a minute. So I guess you are not alone with this.....

Sample:

 

[BGDOCK]

Have you tried iodine . Cotton swab or the glass ampule w/ a cotton swab found in medkits? Cleans up some of the material but leaves a yellow stain for a couple of days versus 10 days

 

[Alondro]

I got a few of those little stains long ago. But my skin sheds so fast, the outer layers that were stained came off in just 3 days! (It's great for weight loss... I drop a pound a week in skin! Ewwwwwww...)

 

[nickvc]

Im sure it’s not good for you but silver dip / cleaner removes those stains , a better choice maybe soap and a pumice stone and maybe a little bleach which at least is safe .

 

[adam mizer]

I used 3% Peroxide and it works takes a couple days soaking now and then.
It will not remove stain from your nails bit works okay on skin.