What work gloves do you use for heavy infestation of poison oak & ivy (covered in urushiol)?

Use nitrile or latex gloves and cover them with leather gloves. The nitrile is to protect you from the gloves and the gloves from hard work that tears plastic.

Take leather off and you can spray them down with a soap.

Then wash hands in soapy water (with gloves on) and dry off with paper towels and throw them away.

Then take off the plastic gloves and run for your life!

We have it all over here - roundup takes it out - but sometimes it is so big - 1/4" stalk - that it takes several treatments.

Mart> >

That's good advice and I already wear Costco nitrile gloves under my pigskin mig-welding gloves.

You can see the box of nitrile gloves in the picture posted previously:

The use of hand cremes on the knees and ankles might prevent Toxicodendron dermatitis in those unexpected spots.

I sometimes find when the urushiol is so thick, it leaves black oxidized marks on my ankles after a few hours tromping around as noted here:

If I had put a hand creme all over my body, especially my knees and ankles, maybe it would have prevented these unexpected infections.

Go cheap and just throw them away when you are finished.

That's what I do...I buy the big bag of brown cheapo gloves at Wal*Mart and toss them...Works for me and I'm VERY allergic to that stuff...HTH...Why make it more complicated than it needs to be??

The only problem with that is the typical "work glove" is too short to cover the wrists as can be seen in the original photos posted at

Also, the urushiol oil easily penetrates most cloth gloves and some say it can penetrate thin leathers, both of which are likely in el cheapo work gloves.

Good gloves are necessary given the huge amount of poison oak to be cleared is an impenetrable jungle as shown in these photos here

Based on what it says in this web site, you and your older son probably react onlty to three or more degrees of saturation on the carbon chain hanging off the urushiol catechol while your son and sinister in law likely react to the unsaturated chain or one or two degrees of saturation:

See

Yeah it can get interesting depending on where you are and what you do. The stream that runs behind my place is a "Class 2 trout habitat" Get caught in the stream with any machinery (other than a farm tractor crossing the stream) and the state gets nasty.

So DON'T get CAUGHT!!!!!

For your sake though, you should not tramp through the poison oak with impugnity.

Notice Wayne himself, in Waynesworld, says he used to be immune ... until ...

I'd try welder's gloves (or similar) to keep from getting burned as I operated the flame-thrower. (Don't forget the ear, eye, nose, throat, and underarm protection.)

I am currently using arc welders gloves as the flame welder's gloves were way too thick to operate gas cutting equipment.

The only problem with these mig welding gloves is they don't handle repeated washings well.

- deerskin gloves?

- kangaroo skin gloves?

- cowhide gloves?

- pigskin gloves?

- goatskin gloves?

Here is a comparison of the various skins, but not with respect to phenols:

So, it looks like, for repeated washings, you want:

In that order.

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"Elmo" wrote: (clp) If I had put a hand creme all over my body, especially my knees and ankles,

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Putting it all over the body seems a bit extreme, but--whatever it takes. Realize, of course, that you are comparing a whole body treatment to the wearing of gloves. I would try using the cream on hands, forearms and other areas where you have experienced the problem, and rely on some kind of coveralls for full body protection.

I didn't mention it but I subscribe to the multi-layer approach with respect to the whole body.

So I wear long pants and a long-sleeved shirt under my mechanics overalls (coveralls?). And I wear nitrile gloves under the goatskin gauntlet style mig/tig welding gloves.

Still, I'm so covered in the urushiol catechols that my wrists have visible phenolic black marks from scrapes with the oxidized and polymerized urushiol, especially when it's wet or when I sweat a lot.

So, the hand creme might be a good third layer on my wrists.

About the only part of my body exposed to the elements is my face, neck, and ears ... but for some reason, they don't seem to get the rash as much as my wrists, between my fingers, and on my ankles and toes.

Don't forget your suit of armor and chain mail hauberk and coif.

Everyone keeps suggesting Roundup. Maybe I'm missing something basic here.

Remember, we're talking a JUNGLE of intertwined vines. How am I supposed to get Roundup a hundred yards from where I can't access, let alone five feet from the thicket I'm trying to penetrate?

What am I missing that more than one person says Roundup will do the job?

We're talking hedgerow-thick impenetrable chaparral so thick a human can't get more than a couple of feet into it before being stopped by the vines, many of which are an inch to two inches thick along with the thinner stuff as shown in the pictures previously posted.

Maybe they know of a dissemination method that I haven't thought of, being that there's no way to disburse Roundup a hundred yards from what you can actually acess, let alone five to twenty feet from where you're standing.

Or is there???? How can Roundup possibly be disseminated thru these impenetrable thickets (see the pictures)???????????????

I was thinking helicopter since the canyon sides may be too steep to get a bulldozer in there ... :)

Seriously, I do have a pressure washer, but, wouldn't it use a LOT of Roundup since it feeds from a garden hose? The garden hose is problematic since there isn't a faucet within 500 yeards of the thicket I'm trying to hack my way through. Plus, I'm not trying to clear a square area; I'm cutting a path along the bank of a small stream where the stream itself is choked with poison ivy so the first pass is the stream, the second pass is the bank.

Lately I've been using a chain saw as my "light saber", standing in the center of the stream channel, holding the chain saw high above my head and slashing down to allow myself forward movement. I only need to cut a man-sized tunnel so I don't have to get all the vines that are above 7 feet or so.

I also use the chain saw to slash the ground as there's about a foot of intertwined dead poison oak vines on the floor of the chaparral canyon on the sides of the bank - much of which scrapes against my ankles causing rashes when I am not careful enough.

Likewise, fire seems problematic because I wouldn't know how to keep it in a straight line and it's dry chaparral besides ... which, if it went up in flames, could be very dangerous.

Back to the roundup ... I guess I could slash my way through the stream channel ... and THEN I could apply roundup to the sides of the bank. But I'd still have to wait a year or so for the urushiol to "weather" out of the vines (some say it never weathers out, others say it does). And, after that year has passed, then I can clear off the dead vines.

But, that doesn't seem to be any less work than slashing my way through the vines with all the cutting tools at my disposal. Or maybe I'm missing a key point???????

Elmo:

I come very late to this discussion, but have been reading your posts for years and know you are very determined and usually find a solution.

In this case, I have worked, lived, played, even had ...hmm, a few "intimate experiences" in and around poison oak.

So, that's some 42 years, if you count from about 8 years old.

The messages saying that the oil disappear after about a year or so, are true in MY experience. I can't guarantee it for you and your particular bushes. Maybe you have cream of the crop, top quality hybrid poison oak and the oils last for centuries.

But for my Oregon poison oak on MY ranch, it lasts a year or so.

Unlucky enough to "get a rash." Zanfel is a wonder drug. Technu makes a competing product that works just as well and is usually a little cheaper. But neither are cheap. A small tube of the stuff is $25 or more, but compared to poison oak misery, it's worth it. Just make sure if you buy the Technu brand you are NOT buying just their cleaner.

What you want is Technu EXTREME. You can google both Zanfel and Technu to read about them.

A trip to the doctor also works, but is even more expensive and then you get ultra high doses of steroids, which I prefer to avoid.

Finally, you'd be amazed at what a GOOD heavy equipment operator can do for you, or the suggestions they can make. It wouldn't hurt to call one to take a look. Pricewise, and misery-wise, you could come out way ahead

Tim

Dumb question- why do you need access to this creek bed? Simple contrariness, and a desire to walk wherever you please on your property? Your best dog keeps getting stuck down there?

Mother nature has clearly labeled that a no-human zone. I'd be inclined to post a few signs and say the hell with it. A whole lotta work to kill it and remove it, and keep it from coming back.

What's that Lassie? You say that Which Doktor fell down the old sci.engr.joining.welding mine and will die if we don't mount a rescue by Sat, 10 Apr 2010 16:24:12 -0400:

Codpiece! Don't forget the codpiece!