As far as doing dishes without gloves. Using water that comes from the tap has chlorine and no saline. Using water that has a lower saline level than your body results in water moving through the concentration gradient (from your body) which is why your fingers pucker when wet a long time). This process of removing water from inside your skin and keeping the exterior constantly wet leads to dry skin. Over time this can cause surface damage, and enlarge pours on your skin. Not to mention the fact that the skin is dry and coarse to the touch. Most women like to have soft hands, so wearing gloves is important.

One last thing, dishes — especially ones that you won’t also put in the dishwasher — should be washed in the hottest water possible. Plastics, even more than wood, hold on to bacteria in little scars, cuts and holes in the surface. A friend of my son’s got salmanilla poisoning from a plastic cup that wasn’t washed thoroughly. He was sick for a couple weeks. So, you should use VERY hot water to clean dishes, which would burn your hands. A long handled brush doesn’t get them out of the hot water in the sink, so that won’t work.

Dishes should be washed by filling a sink with hot, soapy water, washing them in the one sink and rinsing them in another, or better rinsing them with clean, flowing water. A dip in water laced with bleach and then rinsed is even better. Allowing them to soak a bit in hot, soapy water is great to kill bacteria. Point being, washing them in very hot water is best, and you can’t do that without gloves or with a long-handled brush.

cybele — I like the long handled brush suggestion for dishes — will look into that (though I’ll still need gloves for borax).

meg — Bluettes are on order! Thanks for the tip :)

Have you tried tire repair for your gloves?