Driving down the interstate on a muggy summer day, I was suddenly overwhelmed by a batch of body odor in the air. “Little wonder”, I thought, seeing that I had four mid-teen boys jammed in the car with me. Not being one to beat around the bush, I immediately demanded to know who had forgotten to apply the deodorant that a.m. A chorus of indignant denials instantly rose up.

As I jabbed my accusing finger toward the backseat, I stopped midsentence and sniffed. The smell was unmistakably coming from my own hands. I had completely forgotten about having earlier chopped three cups of onions for a mega batch of spaghetti sauce. A strong, stale onion odor, uncomfortably reminiscent of b.o., was still embedded in my skin despite repeated washings.

I have had these types of embarrassing experiences too many times to count over the years of my domestic life. Not being the kind of woman who knows a manicurist on a first name basis, I have marched into business conferences, PTA meetings and charity galas realizing too late that I was sporting hands that would be well advised to have a pair of pockets to shove into. These are times when a narrative of that day’s cherry pitting or berry picking by way of explanation would be entirely inappropriate and only draw more attention to my sorry looking hands.

For me, there is an enviable number of domestic divas who treat themselves right, knowing how to avoid those nuisance stains and lingering odors. In their cabinets, right next to their parchment paper and pastry bags, they keep a box of nitrile or food service gloves. A quick snap-on of these accessories saves them all kinds of heartache.

This kind of self discipline is something I long to adopt but my gung-ho temperament of “act now, think later” often leaves me with little choice other than to deal with damage control after the fact. Getting rid of food stains or odors on my hard working hands has led me to a few folk remedies, some with better results than others.

Applying a salt or sugar scrub (a wee bit of moisture added to a heap of either) can exfoliate a certain amount of onion or garlic presence from hands. The permeating persistence of food oils can also be absorbed to some degree of success by facial mask clays.

Lemon juice or mouthwash makes a fairly effective soaking agent for sullied hands even though there may be some unpleasant stinging in the process. Rubbing odorous hands with fragrant orange peel provides some smell relief. And there are those who think nothing of smearing peanut butter or toothpaste on odorous hands, swearing this rids them of all offense.

By far one of the oddest propositions for eliminating garlic or onion odor from a cook’s hands is to rub them against stainless steel while cold water pours over them. A stainless steel kitchen sink is the obvious place to try this out. The somewhat suspect theory suggests that the sulfur molecules which cause the offending odor are neutralized in this process.

After considering all these options, some of them quite skin-stinging and others just a pain in the neck, I am revisiting the disposable glove idea. A box gloves doesn’t nick the budget or pantry space too seriously and it is never too late to re-invent oneself.

Our author: Glove industry expert Jen Long is Support Director for a major U.S.-based online retailer that sells | href=”http://www.glovenation.com”>Nitrile and Latex-Free Gloves where she maintains a web knowledgebase for those who need to wear gloves, | href=”http://tinyurl.com/yhvggqm”>Depending On nitrile gloves.