On 26/04/2021 10:23, Harry Bloomfield wrote:
For several months now, I have had an ongoing itchy rash on the back of
both hands, close to the area of my thumbs. For quite a while, I have
been racking my brain trying to work out what might be causing it. My
best guess was washing up, but I have always done at least my share of
that. Then I realised the rash appeared when we swapped from Fairy, to
Elbow Grease liquid - as it seemed to be just as good and a little cheaper.

On Thursday in the interests of experimentation, I picked up a 2L bottle
of Fairy and have used that in the days since then (SWMBO is away). The
rash now seems to have almost gone.

It is possible. One of the impurities in typical washing up liquid
surfactants can be a skin irritant bordering on contact dermatitis.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium_laureth_sulfate

I have recently picked up an allergy to a component in one of the
supermarket in store hand sanitisers which is a bit of a nuisance.

I think it arose from skin dryness and scratch damage from gardening and
the Covid secure hand washing measures allowing the stuff to get into
contact with live skin cells. I now react to one particular sort.

I mentioned it to one of my medic friends and they said it had become
very common. Pharmacist recommended an oily handcream Cetraben which
seems to work.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown