Gloves with star san?

Is it common for your hands to start flaking the week after using Star San? Should I be wearing gloves? It's gross, it's like my hands have dandruff!

Nah, it can dry off your skin a li'l but it sounds more like you may have a sensitivity to acids or something. Most people would be fine to just rinse it off, or not, but in your case you may want to get a pair of dishwashing gloves or something.

I actually had the same problem at first (maybe quite a bit more severe). Now I am just a little more careful with long-ish exposures to star san. If I am going to be working with it in direct contact with my skin, I just do what I need to do and then wash/rinse afterwards and seems to have solved the problem.

Initially, I had a real issue after bottling and dunking my hand into a little bucket where the caps were soaking in it. After doing that 50-ish times, I noticed about an hour after I was done, I was shedding the skin on my hand. It was pretty insane. Freaked me out for a second because all the skin on my thumb basically peeled away all at the same time.

My brother-in-law can't even use the stuff because it is so irritating to his skin specifically, his nose/sinuses, that he swore the stuff off. The one time he used it he started to get headaches, eye irritation, and stuffed up. Pretty nasty. As far as I know he wasn't snorting the stuff or using it as an aftershave either... so he claims...

So yeah, some folks are definitely more sensitive to it than others - lol. I think my brother-in-law is the extreme example.

It sounds like if you invest in some good brew gloves you should be all good though. Definitely worth it.

are you using per carb too? usually using percarb and star san wrecks my hands for a few days

I always wear gloves.

Good to know. Thanks everyone, I wasn't sure if the RDWHAHB applied here or not.

Are you mixing it correctly?? I think its .5 oz for 2.5 gallons of water (it doesn't take much)

Yup. I mixed 1oz. with 5 gallons so I can submerge all my weapons of mass home brewing! Muwahahahaha!

Yeah it sounds like a bad reaction, but another thing to keep in mind, to everyone, is to remember what happens if you hang out in the pool too long. Your skin will absorb a little bit of this stuff and I can't imagine there's any benefit. I almost always use gloves, even when I just have one small thing to quickly dunk in it and do it without gloves, I think it was a bad idea right after and I don't even get those reactions. Definitely get some good long gloves to keep your arms protected too.

I bathe in it. But then I'm an armadillo.
Interesting that some people have such a sensitivity to it. But then there are plenty of people with peanut allergies (sitting here eating peanut butter crackers)
Maybe I'll be a little more careful in the future.