Hand cleaner and hand care for fleet mechanics

01 · The work

Grease and brake dust

Fleet mechanics and shop techs spend the shift under the lift: brake jobs, grease, brake dust, diesel and used oil on the hands, worked into the creases and around the nails. Then a road call, where the nearest sink is back at the shop.

Mechanics wash their hands more than almost anyone, and with the harshest stuff in the building.

Open bay doors, cold steel and wet hands in winter dry skin out fast.R&R Lotion blog, Understanding Dry Skin in Winter (2024)

02 · The exposure

Degreaser doesn’t stop at the grease

• Grease and brake dust
• Parts cleaner, degreaser
• Skin cells
• Oils and lipids

The outermost layer of skin, the stratum corneum, is made of dead skin cells held together by natural oils and lipids. Picture bricks and mortar. The mortar holds moisture in and keeps irritants out.

Parts cleaner, degreaser and hours in nitrile gloves strip the oils out of your skin. Then comes a winter road call: an open side box, cold steel and wet hands. Knuckles split first.

Sources: R&R Lotion blog, Glove Safety and Compatibility in the Workplace (2022), Protecting Your Skin with Barrier Creams (2023) and Understanding Dry Skin in Winter (2024).

03 · What develops

Split knuckles, cracked fingertips

• Water escaping
• Irritants

Keep exposing skin to parts cleaner, degreaser and the inside of a glove and the barrier breaks down. That’s irritant contact dermatitis. It starts as redness, itching and dryness, and it can progress to cracking and blistering.

Knuckles split, fingertips crack, and cracked hands are slower and harder to keep clean on the next wash-up, so the cycle feeds itself.

There’s a second type, allergic contact dermatitis, where skin becomes sensitized to something it touches, including some glove materials. If your hands won’t settle down, get them looked at.

On the job, contact dermatitis shows up on the hands in about 80% of cases.Occupational contact dermatitis, as reported on the R&R Lotion blog (2023)

04 · Why we built it

Built for the shop sink

Mechanics need a cleaner strong enough for grease and oil that rinses clean at the shop sink, a way to clean up on a road call with no water, and something for hands that are dry and rough from all of it.

Hand sanitizer doesn’t work well on hands that are visibly dirty or greasy. Greasy hands need the grease lifted off first.CDC, When and How to Wash Your Hands

05 · On shift

When to use what

1. 1
   At the shop sinkGloves off. Pump I.C. Heavy Duty Hand Cleaner into dry hands, lather it into the creases and around the nails for at least 15 seconds, then rinse and dry.
2. 2
   On a road callNo sink at the side box: waterless hand cleaner. Apply, scrub, then wipe it off with a shop rag or towel.
3. 3
   Before lunch or the cabGet the grease off first, at the sink or with the waterless cleaner. Hand sanitizer on greasy hands isn’t a substitute.
4. 4
   End of the shiftClean hands, then I.C. Advanced Repair Hand Cream rubbed into dry knuckles and fingertips.

Follow each product’s label directions and your shop safety program. Gloves come off for washing. Put a gallon pump at the shop sink and a bottle of waterless cleaner in every service truck.