Give Me a Show of Hands

It’s accepted pretty universally that metalworkers are tough hombres. While the environment in most shops has changed dramatically from “Dickensonian hell-holes” to include such creature comforts as climate control, ventilation and reduced or eliminated VOC exposure, there is still one area of shop life that remains relatively unchanged from the 19th century.

 What could that be, Chris, you’re asking yourself. Well ladies and gents, I’m talking about—drum roll please—hand soap. And I’m talking about it because debuting at IMTS is a new machinist friendly dude called Uncle Earl, and he has formulated a soap that ends the eczema and dermatitis that machinists have endured forever.

Uncle Earl is a real person and a real machinist (see his likeness in the picture above). Seriously though, this soap from Zebra Skimmers has been formulated specifically to address the problems associated with frequent hand washing in machine shop environments. Drying of the skin, cracking and even bleeding can result from long-term use of conventional soaps. Uncle Earl’s soap begins and maintains the hand-healing process.