[Paul B]

Ive seen this used before climbing to help stop your hands being so greasy, anyone know where it can be purchased cheaply? I think i've heard you can use it for cleaning tape heads but somethig as specialist as that surely comes with a price?
Cheers.

[webbo]

you could try using white spirit,the stuff you use to clean paint brushes.it gets the chain on my bike clean of grease.

[Timatron]

I believe you're looking for Isopropanol Alcohol.  All pharmacies will stock it, or at least order it for you, although they will ask you why you want it.  As if you're going to admit your wrongdoing.

[Paul B]

hmmm maybe, ill see what the thread throws up first, im sure ive seen someone from here using it? and I distincly remember percy having some at a comp a few years ago to clean a sloper off?

[fatdoc]

Massive antigreasing agent...... dries all the fat and grease off the surface of your hands, rendering the layers of skin dry and hard......

and brittle as f8ck, prone to ripping and splitting.

want you want mate........


"is this lurvley little mota ere, great run around and starts everytime"........... sorry



want you want is:

strong skin, that is flexible that has no great divots in it and has a few good layers to allow for a good session on the grit.


fervant use of soap and water after climbing, with copious quantities of climb on creme or bars is the way.

I've just started climbing again and my skin has never been any good. (i wash my hands 30 times plus a day at work).... climb on has changed my life!!


having said that, you can get chalk as a liquid (alcohol based) from megagrip.co.uk (sorry dont know how to link on here), it's not as good as it used to be  - alledgedly cos there is no longer any resin in it - but it does give you 30 mins more before mr spooge comes a'knockin.

if you are just mr soft totally and have no good skin base then ask around on here for some antihydral cream, dont bother trying to source in the UK... you cant...... Fiend on here very very kindly sorted me out with this stuff - basically if i have a hard day on grit before i was off the rock for 3 days; now it's 1. bizzare shit - that you can easily use too much of.


dont forget the climbers specific based chalks have drying agents added.

IMO the use of alcohol on the hands to toughen them up are long gone.
regarding cleaning holds - wont do the rock much good i'm sure - but i thought you were interested in putting it on your hands, not the rock.

hope this helps.

[Paul B]

For Grit? no you've got it all wrong, its for the wood, im psyched for my next summers eurotrip.
Thanks for the advice but until you've pulled onto a problem just after me you dont understand the scale of this problem, my fingers just seem to sweat holds up instantaneously.
I understand the annoyance of splits thats why ive avoided antihydral up until this point. Rubbing alcohol really have the same effect on skin?

[moose]

I use isopropyl alcohol as part of my job (my lab uses it for cleaning samples and equipment).  And that hideous stuff's the reason I gave such a long and detailed reply to the "big-gay manicure thread" - long and bitter experience of dry, cracked, flakey hands!  Don't go near it... you'll become a slave to moisturiser... people will think cliff richard's scrotum has gone solo, looking for action!

[SA Chris]

It's probably carcinogenic too.

I swear by the Joshua Tree balm. Anything that could get my hands back into usable form after 6 months of wearing gloves all day and not climbing to spending ten days in Joshua Tree must have some benefit.

[fatdoc]

go antihydral then mate.......

at least all the rest of us here do agree on 1 point


- the alcohol stuff is wank

[Paul B]

fair enough. Tried to get some this afternoon and no chemist had it or would even try and get it.

[fatdoc]

nor can the senior pharmacist of an NHS hospital mate

only sources are from germany (via good old google). it's not clear wether its a POM (prescription only medicine), but you can get from USA sites as well.. so i doubt it.

one other source is simply to plead to the forum to see if anyone has any spare...

[Paul B]

i was referring to the alcohol but im guessing you meant antihydral?

[fatdoc]

bollox, yeah I'm talkin the antihydral....

[vivahate]

If they are sweating a lot more than they used to you might be able to stop it by just concentrating on not sweating, mentally tell yourself not to have sweaty palms. I've heard of it being recommended to people who hands sweat when concentrating hard doing stuff like drawing, and it has worked with them. I don't know any specific techniques but I just imagined doing moves and concentrated on not sweating, and its not a problem anymore (i used to get wet hands at the first bit of climbing stimulus)

Could be something to do as an anxiety reaction in the sympathetic nervous system that makes palms sweat more when your trying really hard?

I think over using chalk could cause that too, like if you constantly have loads of chalk on your hands all the time they may not get enough air to cool down and oversweat to compensate?

[Paul B]

hmmm I reckon recently is because ive been climbing a lot on wood and then had to sessions on resin which wore everything really thing, just a bit of a knee jerk response after a session was ruined just slipping of things I usually wouldnt.

[Simon S]

I've recently found that the long I can delay the use of chalk at the start of a session the less I need to use it overall. But, as soon as I squeeze that chalk ball for the first time thats it, I NEED chalk! On wood I find that liquid chalk can work the best rather than the loose stuff, but then I have mega sweety hands!

[Jim]

try some witch hazel, s'posed to be good for oily skin.

[fatboySlimfast]

Here fatdoc you got some isopropyl in your garage........disc brake cleaner!!!!! Used in aerosol form for cleaning the discs on mountain bike hydraulic brakes

this shit

[fatdoc]

i'm not rubbing my hands in that!!!!

it takes your bloody skin off!!

[Houdini]

This is getting very Kristian Klemmow.  Too Kristian Klemmow.  Yes!  Yes!  I know you have skin!  But what else do you have?!