When I started my house painting and repair business 26 years ago, I used to purchase solvent based hand cleaners to remove oil based paint from my hands. Many hand cleaners use mineral spirits or other chemical based agents as part of their formula. These chemicals are very hard on skin. After a few years, my hands started looking very rough and became hyper sensitive to solvent base cleaners.

Solvent based hand cleaners did a pretty good job of removing oil based paint, but at the expense of poor quality skin. After developing problems with my skin, I switched to using citrus based hand cleaners and found that citrus based hand cleaners were an improvement. They actually cleaned my skin about as well as the solvent based cleaners. Citrus based hand cleaners were less caustic to my hands.

However, after a few years of using citrus cleaners, I became allergic to something in the cleaner. Perhaps it was the citrus extracts themselves. I don't know for sure.

One day while doing an interior house painting project for my own home and dreading cleaning my hands with cleaner again, a thought occurred to me. Why not try baby oil and see if it will remove oil base paint. Therefore, I applied baby oil to my hands and started rubbing the oil into my dry skin and found that the oil base paint was dissolving. I applied the baby oil 3 or 4 times to my hands and rubbed it into my skin before rinsing with water. Then I dried my hands very well and applied it one more time to remove any residual paint. When I was done, my skin was soft, clean, and felt smooth.

I have to tell you, using baby oil was a vast improvement over anything I had ever used before, and it's all I've used for years.

Sometimes the simplest things sitting right under your nose turn out to be the best solution to your problem.

Remember these key points before using baby oil. Use the baby oil before wetting your hands. If you wet your hands first, the water will repel the baby oil rendering it useless. Be sure and apply the baby oil 2 to 3 times to your hands wiping with a dry paper towel between applications. When the paint is desolved, rinse with soap and warm water. Work the baby oil into your skin and within two shakes of a cat's tail, you will notice the oil based paint will start dissolving. Wash and then dry your hands well. Reapply the baby oil to remove any residual oil paint.

Baby oil may not be as speedy as your solvent based hand cleaners, but a little more time is a small sacrifice to avoid having your skin look like tree bark.