Foot Cream and Hands - Cosmetic Capulets and Montagues?

June 9, 2009 5:36 PM

Why is it so important that I wash my hands "thoroughly" after applying my foot cream (instructions/ingredients)? Texture and thickness aside, isn't skin, well, skin?
posted by boombot to Clothing, Beauty, & Fashion (8 answers total)

One of the ingredients is menthol. If you have some mentholy lotion lingering on your hands, and your nose or eye starts itching and out of habit you reach up and rub it, and then you get menthol on a mucous membrane, well, ouch. I'm not sure urea's a good thing to accidentally get in your nasal passages, either.

In short, that stuff's probably fine for your hands, it's just the other places your hands might touch that should be protected.
posted by Metroid Baby at 5:41 PM on June 9, 2009 [1 favorite]

It has an antiperspirant (aluminum chlorohydrate). It would probably feel weird on your hands.
posted by charmcityblues at 5:47 PM on June 9, 2009

Yeah, Metroid Baby is exactly right. That's the only thing on the label that jumped out at me.
posted by Inspector.Gadget at 5:47 PM on June 9, 2009

I thought it would be because feet go in more icky places like bathroom floors, and I know i like to get those germs off my hands ASAP.
posted by amethysts at 5:50 PM on June 9, 2009

You probably don't want that stuff on your more sensitive bits; the best way to avoid that is to wash it off your hands ASAP.
posted by Simon Barclay at 6:22 PM on June 9, 2009

The thing is that if they wrote "Don't get this in your eyes" you'd just laugh because it's a foot cream. Writing "wash this off your hands right away" is a better way of keeping you from getting it in your eyes.
posted by Sidhedevil at 6:34 PM on June 9, 2009

Hand washing also prevents you from accidentally ingesting it, if you were to eat something with your bare hands.
posted by cabingirl at 6:42 PM on June 9, 2009

All of the above, plus your feet tend to be filthy.
posted by randomstriker at 11:24 PM on June 9, 2009