Why Cutting Chili Peppers Burns Your Hands and the 6 Most Effective Solutions

Usually, every time after cutting chili peppers, your hands feel as if they have been burned by fire, stinging from the heat, and no matter how you wash them, it only relieves the pain temporarily, and after a while they burn again. So what should you do when chili peppers burn your hands? What are the most effective solutions?

1. Why do chili peppers burn your hands?

The thing in chili peppers that makes your fingers burn is a capsaicinoid called capsaicin. When cutting chili peppers, capsaicin gets on the skin, causing capillaries to dilate, which makes the skin redden and feel hot, and at the same time it stimulates pain nerves. This is the reason we usually feel a burning sensation in our hands.

2. What should you do when chili peppers burn your hands?

Even if you do nothing about chili peppers burning your hands, the burning sensation will disappear on its own after some time, but the burning process is very uncomfortable. So how can you reduce the burning sensation? Here are 6 effective solutions:

1. Repeatedly wipe with medical alcohol or baijiu: The capsaicin in chili peppers is soluble in ethanol and alkaline aqueous solutions. Alcohol can dissolve the capsaicin on your hands. This method can relieve the burning pain, but its effect is not the most obvious.

2. Apply white vinegar to your hands: Capsaicin is alkaline, and vinegar can neutralize capsaicin, but the acetic acid content in edible vinegar is limited, so the effect is also very limited and can only relieve it slightly.

3. Apply toothpaste to your hands: Most toothpaste is also alkaline and can dissolve the capsaicin on your hands. It also contains cooling agents that can produce a cold compress effect and suppress the burning sensation, but once you wash it off, the burning pain returns, so it treats the symptoms but not the root cause.

4. Apply cooling oil to your hands: Cooling oil has a cooling and heat-dissipating effect, so you can try applying cooling oil to relieve the burning sensation in your hands.

5. Apply fluocinolone acetonide cream or an ointment with similar functions: Fluocinolone acetonide cream is used to relieve and treat dermatitis-type conditions, and it is effective for treating skin redness, swelling, and pain, so applying an appropriate amount can also help relieve the symptoms.

6. Apply cooking oil to your hands: Capsaicin is fat-soluble and can also dissolve the capsaicin on your hands. This is the most effective of the above methods.

Summary: Household vinegar and alcohol have limited active ingredients, so they are unlikely to remove it; toothpaste, cooling oil, and ointments can relieve the burning pain, but they treat the symptoms and not the root cause; hot water will worsen the burning, stinging sensation and does not help remove capsaicin; cooling with cold water can only temporarily relieve the burning sensation in the fingers; the root cause of burning hands is capsaicin, and capsaicin is insoluble in water but soluble in oil, so you can consider using oils to remove it.

3. How can you cut chili peppers without burning your hands?

Actually, if you want to avoid burning your hands, the most direct and effective method is to isolate yourself from contact with the chili peppers. As long as you wear kitchen gloves when cutting chili peppers, you will not need to worry about your hands being burned.

Warm tips: (1) If you accidentally burn your hands, do not rub your eyes; (2) Every time after cutting chili peppers, do not forget to wash your hands with water; (3) When stir-frying chili peppers, do not grab the cut chili peppers with your hands to put them into the wok.