Jalapeño burning your hands, eyes or ... whatever else? Allow me to show you how to get jalapeño off your hands as we enter pepper season. Because even though you should wear gloves when you slice hot peppers - you probably don't do that.
I'm worried that you got to this post because you dipped your hands into jalapeno juice and are now running screaming around your kitchen so I'm getting to the important information immediately.
How to Treat a Hot Pepper Burn
Hot peppers contain Capsaicin, a natural oil. So in order to get rid of the pain, you have the neutralize the alkaline oil.
The best way to do that is with something acidic. You cannot wash away a hot pepper burn with soap and water.
- Douse or soak the area in milk.
- Spread butter or yogurt on the burning area.
- Wash your hands with olive oil until the pain goes away and then wash your hands with soap and water.
- Dip your hands into a solution of 1 part bleach and 4 parts water. Don't soak your hands in the bleach solution, just dip them in and take them out. Wash your hands immediately afterwards.
Use whatever method will work best with where your burn is. I think dairy products work the best but use what you have. If you don't have olive oil you can substitute with vegetable oil.
** ONLY use the milk method if the pepper burn is in your eyes.
I use the milk method all the time.
Here's the thing about me; I injure myself at least 3 times a week. I cut myself, burn myself and just generally maim myself. It's not because I'm particularly clumsy or careless ... I just do a lot. Most of the time I just ignore these injuries and know they'll go away in a few days.
But sometimes I need the pain to go away IMMEDIATELY. Like that time I suffered a chili con carne injury that I couldn't ignore. Nor could anyone who looked at me.
When you have a finger full of hot pepper juice you should avoid touching your eye.
I just soaked a pad in milk and wore it like an eye patch.
So if you get a pepper burn anywhere on your body, including your eyes, your fingers, your mouth, your ... um ... private parts ... the very best thing you can do is soak it in milk or spread yogurt on it.
I left my eye sling on for 20 minutes total and I replaced the cotton pad with a freshly soaked pad every 5 minutes or so. You should feel instant relief from the milk, but as the burn starts to come back, replace with new, cold milk.
Now if you'll excuse me I have a mystery scab that needs to be tended to.
→Follow me on Instagram where I often make a fool of myself←
Jill
Karen, my daughter and I were de-seeding what we were told were mild peppers for drying. About five minutes into it our faces started swelling. Seven minutes into it our lips were on fire and we couldn't see. : O My fingernails hurt. The skin underneath my fingernails hurt.
After realizing that just having these peppers IN THE SAME ROOM AS US caused us these injuries, I removed the offending veg to the front porch. If I hadn't, we were doomed. I think our brains were slightly charred too.
We had never touched our faces.
Went online and sought advice where I read that Pepto Bismal helps. We applied pink masks. It helped. Needed more relief so we we tried sour cream AND Pepto.
As the pain subsided (it took over an hour), my husband walked in the house and saw us. He just shook his head and retreated to his man cave. That says a lot about the shit he witnesses around here (usually involving me).
Krista
Karen, another remedy is hair. When I lived as a student in Mexico I got jalapeno juice in my eye. My host kept yelling at me "pelo,pelo!" (hair, hair) and i was Like NO my EYE! my EYE! Next thing I knew she grabbed a handful of my hair and rubbed it over my eye. Pain gone instantly! I've made sure to keep my hair just long enough ever since. However, for you I would advice not cutting peppers unless the fella was around to rub on. I have no idea why it works but it is instant.
Grammy
Okay, this is years later, but I somehow just read this post because Karen referred to it in 2016 and I came over to look and couldn't stop. I have found all the information about milk enormously interesting, but kept wondering why no one had ever, apparently, heard about rubbing hair over your eyes.
I grew up in Southern California, and learned to cook Mexican food from an old woman (she was in her fifties then, so if I met her today I would classify her as a youngster) named Antonia. Preparing for a party once when I was a teenager I touched my eyelid after cutting jalapeño and was scared to death I'd be blind forever in addition to the pain. Antonia just instantly reached to her head and pulled out a single hairpin that was holding her very long hair in a tidy bun, then pulled me to her and rubbed her hair over my eyes. The relief was instant.
I wore my own hair very long for most of my life, so have always used her technique to good effect, but have never found anyone else who has heard of it. I cut my hair short about 15 years ago, so now I use those little plastic "food service" gloves when I have a lot of peppers to prepare, but I always think of Antonia and wish I had enough hair to wear in a bun. And that she was still with us.
Karen
Hair??? Really? I wish I'd read this before cutting up my jalapeno peppers tonight. I'd have sacrificed some eye skin for that experiment. ~ karen!
Grammy
I don't know if your hair is long enough, Karen. Mine isn't any more, that's why I wear gloves for peppers nowadays. But, if you have someone else in the house with hair long enough (and willingness to keep you from pain and suffering) you can use their hair.
I always assumed that the hair absorbed the capsaicin, but after reading the comments here it appears that maybe it's the oil in hair that does the job. Long hair would normally be free of any sprays or gels and have a greater supply of natural oils even when clean. So maybe you should keep your adorable hairstyle and go forward with gloves (for prevention) or milk (for treatment).
Summer
Us chemists have a joke.. it's pretty terrible, but here it is: Only chemists and pepper pickers wash their hands BEFORE they go to the bathroom!
Justine
THERE IS A BETTER WAY!!! (Am I allowed to say that?) But f'real. Banana peels. or banana in general. Mush that stuff all over pepper burns for some much quicker relief.
Karen
Justine - You're only allowed to say it if you write a post about it and prove it, LOL. Just joking. Kind of. Actually, I only post things on my site that I have tested and have proven actually work. Milk really is the best thing for this particular burn, and the other thing is most people always have milk in the house but might not have bananas. If the chance arises again and I have a banana on hand, I'll do a post amendment. :) ~ karen!
cynD
malox helps with the burn of peppers the eyeball well maybe not so much but other parts of a body.. yep good ol' malox. I found this out with a Kelliblu event cutting peppers with out gloves or with abandon ugh! mercy.. malox did the trick for me. I was ever so grateful. I am not in to pain of any kind. The Eye patch thing WOW how creativev and useful is that with the butterfly clip and every thing! woo hoo
amy mills
been there. washed my hands, went after my diva cup... wow, that's a whole different kind of pain and i could figure out how to get milk there:(
Charli
My skin is really sensitive to capsaicin. I recently got some on my hands and face (thankfully not my eyes)... I knew I'd heard milk was supposed to help. I don't remember if I was out of milk or what, but I ended up slathering plain, full fat yogurt on my face and hands. It seems like it was even more effective than milk, and I didn't have to change it out as often.
Meg
You're too much, Karen-- my right cheek is hurting, so if one of us figures out what causes bilateral butt soreness we'll have to let the other know!
I was cutting some habanero peppers for dinner one night and one of them was (don't ask me how) juicy and squirted me in the eye. That was awesome. My next door neighbor (yaaaay!) was an ER nurse and told me to keep rinsing my eye with room temperature water in addition to the milk patch. So, an addendum, don't be afraid to rinse with water between milk applications AND don't think you're the only person who ever managed to get a stinking hot pepper in their eye...
(My husband once, on accident, snuffed a nosefull of cayenne pepper-- dried and ground. His sinus trouble cleared right up, but I have never heard him yell like that!)
Cat
I wear gloves. Because no matter how mild the pepper I end up with burning hands about two seconds after I start cutting them up and it lasts for hours. Plus I can just pull them off, throw them away and not have to worry about touching my eyes or nose or whatever.
I'm not a wuss, I'm practical.
Hannah
Also, I imagine we like milk best because it is cool, which helps to calm the burning sensation, sort of like a cold cloth on a sunburn. We need to change a 'milk bandage' to get more unadulterated fat molecules around the capsaicin bonded cells. Milk also has a protein called casein that acts as a detergent against capsaicin.
Karen
Hannah - Thanks! However, there is something specific in milk that helps. It's not just the cold. I'm gonna stick with this exact method because it worked perfectly. Definitely cut through the pepper oil. Plus I like the milk tears. ~ karen
Hannah
Oh definitely, milk is best. I was just trying to clarify that it wasn't the acid/alkaline nullification, but other properties in milk that makes it work so well.
fACEpALM
There may or may not be something in Milk that works. But this website states it backwards, pepper is acidic which is what makes it burn, like all acids. Alkaline is is "cut" by acid, but the acid is neutralized as it mixes with the dissolved acids. Thus relieving the burn.
They say whole milk helps, so what you're referring to is likely in the fat which makes sense because butter is often used for heat-burns.
George
"You cannot wash the oil off." (That's correct. Capsaicin is hydrophobic so water merely spreads it.) "So in order to get rid of the pain, you have the neutralize the alkaline oil." (Capsaicin is an alkaloid but it is not alkaline.)
I know this post is 4 years old, but it comes up in Google searches so it's still in play.
I grow and process Trinidad Scorpion peppers and have gotten capsaicin in my eyes, on my boy parts, and all over my hands and can tell you that the only thing that gets rid of it is time and your body's natural processes of removing toxins.
I cover my hands with olive oil, and wear two pairs of thick rubber gloves, and wash my gloved hands frequently in first straight bleach then with dish soap and water while I'm processing them (500± every three days). Then I don't touch myself (or I try not to) for 24 hrs.
The pepper you messed with is rated at 500-2500 Scoville Units of heat. The Scorpion is 1.2-2 million.
Hannah
Oh, goodness, that really sucks. I made curry last week and the same thing happened to me.
I just wanted you to know, milk is actually fairly neutral, with a PH of 6.5-6.7. Water is 7.0, so while it is slightly acidic, that factor really has nothing to do with why milk or oil are able to neutralize Capsaicin. You see, capsaicin is a fat soluble molecule, meaning it will only dissolve in a liquid containing some fats. This is why water will not work. Capsaicin also bonds with the receptor cells in your mouth longer than the molecules that convey sweet, bitter, salty, sour, or umami. This means that you will continue to taste the hot/spicy food, until a fat molecule bonds with it and is able to break it away from the receptor on your tongue.
In a study at the School of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, researchers discovered that humans seek spicy foods that activate pain pathways because the brain will release an endogenous opioid, the body's answer to morphine, which we humans like. They also discovered that capsaicin opens the calcium ion receptors in cells, this emits a nerve impulse when the intracellular electrical potential reaches a certain threshold.
People become desensitized to spicy foods (and the reason capsaicin is used to relieve pain) is because capsaicin can bond with these calcium ion receptors and leave them permanently open. The cell receives too many calcium ions and the sensory fibers will die.
You should check out Molecular Gastronom: Exploring the Science of Flavor by Herve This. Translated by M.B. DeBevoise. It explains this a lot better than I can, and many other interesting things too. Some knowledge of biology and chemistry is helpful, but not necessary. If you're a giant nerd like me, you'll get into it either way. What Einstein Told His Cook by Robert L. Wolke is another good reference.
TL:DR Science!!!!
Best of luck with peppers in the future,
-Hannah
Tina
That’s a great answer, thanks!
Caitlin
Glad it worked :)
Milk is only slightly more acidic than neutral, but the reason it works the best is because it contains casein and fats, which dissolve and break up the oils. Which is why they serve sour cream with Mexican foods and yogurt raita with curry :)
C
Kendra
Stainless steel is also pretty good at removing oil from your skin. I don't know why, but if you just rub your fingers on a stainless steel surface (like the kitchen sink), it will rid them of all that pesky pepper, or garlic, or fish oil (and the smell along with it). Now I think the trick is just to get it off your hands before it gets to your eyes... I've never had to try rubbing my eyeball on the kitchen sink before!
the wanna be country girl
Mmmm, crusty eye milk. I knew I should have eaten breakfast. Sorry about your eye. When we're at the beach, after a day of swimming in the community pool full of chlorine and who knows what else, when everyone's eyes are red, blurry and painful, nothing feels better than a few drops of milk. I take an eye dropper and keep it full of milk in the fridge. I always thought it coated the eye. Little did I know, until today that is, that it actually changed the ph.
Thanks, I can officially say I learned something new today!
Caroline
Rhonda "SmartyPants"
Great save, Karen. You should turn it in to the folks that do the "Got milk?" ad campaign, but only if they let you in on the upswing in profits it would be sure to cause.
I really feel sorry for your accident, but the milky white tear got me to thinking about the milky white mustaches that are so phony looking and your tear/drop was real. At least I think it was.
Please, tell me it was real. I need to believe in something.
Karen
Rhonda ... LOL, yes the milk tear was real. Promise. ~ karen
Marti
Geez, what if God froze you when you made that face? Think about it... you'd be stuck wearing your "fashionista eye mask" for the rest of your natural life!
DON'T MAKE THAT FACE EVER AGAIN!
Karen
You'd be amazed at the involuntary things a face will do when clotted with pepper burns and crusty milk. ~ karen
Jacqueline
I saw the photo of you and thought "The things Karen does to herself, just to teach us all something usefull..."
Karen
Jacqueline - Once when I was being interviewed about my job as a television host the reporter asked if I minded basically making a fool of myself on television all the time. (I did the same sort of thing on television as I do on my blog). I said no. Not at all. I don't do anything more ridiculous or embarrassing than anyone else, I just do it in public. And get paid for it. ;) ~ karen
kelliblue
You poor kid ~ ouchie. That's quite the getup too...hm, you sure you're not a robot like the one in Alien? He 'bled milk' too. :-\
My first year in TX, I pulled a 'Lucy' as she noted above. I volunteered to make pico de gallo; and of course throughout the day, I too, had an itch here...there...everywhere. My face. Around my eyes. Under my nose. My armpits. Other places.
My hands started burning. Rinse. Continue chopping. The heat grows more painful. Rinse, repeat, thinking it'll go away. But my palms, while looking absolutely normal, are now burning with an invisible fire so intense, I can't even think straight. Then my face starts burning: my upper lip, around my eyes, my pits...those other places. I was in agony. I also tried soaking my hands in ice water, but like Lucy, as soon as I pulled them out of the water...ouch.
Of course I had absolutely NO fun at the party. Then I had to figure out how to get my contacts out of my eyes without my burning fingers burning my eyes too (get really close to a mirror and literally flip them out of your eye with a fingernail so they stick to the mirror). Needless to say, I burned (but not in a good way) for a solid 48 hours, finally subsiding on Monday, just in time for work, yay. Yup, I had NOT worn gloves, a painful lesson to learn. Haven't touched pico since. :(
Pate
I'm so sorry that I have not used chilies so I'd have a burning eyeball story to share. But wait..... I do have a finger and food story ...... ever cut and trim fresh artichokes? Prep about six and for some reason stick your finger in your mouth?
OMG! What IS that awful taste? So gross!
xxxxx
Pate
Karen
I am familiar with that! It's like, weird and dry! And gross. ~ karen
Diane
Ha! I did this last year with jalapenos. I washed my hands about a katrillion times, give or take a few. It's insane how that shit stays in your skin (and your eye) so long! Wish I had the sense to know this information back then, instead I suffered it out like the trooper I am.
Great read...and laugh! Thanks!