Household tip of the day: Disposable gloves

I’m not much of a lady so I’m not exactly afraid of getting my hands dirty. I have no problem cleaning a toilet or unclogging drainage with my bare hands, but I do have a pretty vivid imagination when it comes to bacteria so if I do get my hands dirty, I’ll have to spend a while scrubbing them to get rid of the mental image of all the bacteria that has settled in under my long nails.

Some people keep those pink or yellow rubber gloves next to their sink for either doing the dishes or dirtier housework (and not both, at least I hope so) and I don’t know about you guys, but those things seem nastier and more unsanitary to me than any toilet seat in the world ever could. Again, this is my vivid imagination talking, but I just imagine them lying around next to the kitchen sink or dangling in a dark cupboard somewhere, covered in all sorts of nasty bacteria that thrive in all the moisture and food waste. Or poo, if they’re toilet scrubbing gloves. Yuck.

There are, however, some jobs around the house that are a bit too nasty even for me to dig into barehanded (like thoroughly cleaning the toilet brush and toilet brush holder) so I like to keep disposable powdered vinyl gloves at home. You can get them at any supermarket and for what a box (100 pairs) of disposable gloves cost (mine were about 4€), you could only get one or two pairs of the yellow household gloves. They’re also great for other sticky and gooey tasks that require hands on action. I use them to:

– Knead dough or mince mixture for patties (and shape patties) so none of it sticks to my hands or under my nails. There’s literally nothing more annoying than picking dried dough from under your nails after you’ve done some baking.

– Deseed and chop chili pods. If you do it barehanded, the heat of the chili will stick to your fingertips, cuticles and nails for a long-long time. Sometimes even long enough for you to forget and insert a tampon…

– Dye my hair. Sure, hair dye comes with gloves. Gloves that are WAY oversized and really uncomfortable to wear.

– Taigna sõtkumiseks või kotletisegu valmistamiseks/kotlettide vormimiseks, et miski mu käte külge ei kleepuks ega küünte alla koguneks. Pole midagi õudsemat ja tüütumat, kui pärast küpsetamist kuivanud tainast küünte alt lahti nokkida ja leotada.

– Tšillikaunade seemnetest puhastamiseks ja hakkimiseks. Kui seda paljakäsi teha, jääb tšilli kipitav teravus küüntele, küünenahkadele ja sõrmeotstele veel pikaks ajaks külge. Mõnikord piisavalt pikaks, et unustad ja sisestad tampooni… 

– Juuste värvimiseks. Jah, juuksevärvi ostes antakse kindad kaasa. Kindad, mis on meeletult suured ja käes kohutavalt ebamugavad.