If you’re anything like us, you’re constantly finding yourself with grease under your nails and oil caked on your hands from spinning spanners on your project. If so, it’s inevitable that you’ll have dealt with the painstaking job of attempting to clean them afterwards using concoctions made from this and that, which are usually grounded in old wives’ tales. Sure, some will have worked, but, more times than not, these backyard chemistry experiments are not good for your skin, and often leave your hands only half clean and your skin damaged.
Wearing gloves is the simple answer, but we’re all guilty of not wearing them when appropriate, and some guys just plain hate the reduced dexterity and tactility. This means that getting off that Henry Ford–era grease, silicone from the pesky leaky sump repair, or Chevy-engine-block orange you managed to get all over your hands is, for some, a nightly mission.
So, when Big Wipes Heavy Duty Wipes, which is new to the New Zealand market, promised to not only clean our hands but also look after our skin at the same time, we had to put it to the test. After checking out the videos online, if we’re honest, we were a little dubious that the wipes could be that effective. We devised three tests — all terribly scientific real-world stuff. First, we tested them on a mechanic’s hands that had been deep in a cam-belt change on some million-mile neglected tow vehicle; second, some fingers that had faced engine enamel overspray; and, third, some silicon that had made its way onto some digits.
In all three of our tests the wipes impressed our test dummies / hand models. The textured wipes held together really well and removed a lot of mess with a single 20x30cm wipe, not becoming clogged like similar products that we’ve tried. For the engine grease, we used two wipes, while the other two tests were done with only one.
The wipes smell nice, and the mixture of aloe vera; lanolin; vitamin E; and the star of the mix, glycerine, left the skin feeling great afterwards. Why is glycerine the star? It’s anti-ageing, a natural exfoliant, moisturizing, an anti-irritant, and hydrating, all rolled into one. As an added bonus, the wipes are also antibacterial — but they are not recommended for wiping anything but your hands, so don’t go getting any ideas.
The wipes are available in an 80-wipe resealable canister that’s perfect for the shed or in the boot of your car for those ‘she’ll be right’ roadside repairs. Big Wipes passed our tests with flying colours and left us impressed with how it left our office hands feeling. Available from all leading automotive retailers.