Have you noticed that strawberries, blueberries and blackberries have hit the stores? I don’t know about you, but after a day of making jam, slicing, and rinsing berries, etc. my hands are always stained. Have you ever wondered how to remove berry stains from your hands?
Here’s a little trick I’ve learned to get the stains off of your hands a while ago after a very long day of picking berries with my kids. Rather than scrubbing them until your skin comes off: Make a paste of cornmeal and lemon juice. Yep! How simple is that!?
Simply rub the paste on your hands, let it sit a minute or two and then rinse it off.
We’ve been using this method for years!
It’s easy peasy and you didn’t have to commit chemical warfare on your skin. Plus, I always seem to have cornmeal and lemon juice on hand too. {Of course, you could always just wear rubber gloves. But those things make me feel like a fumbling idiot. Funny how one thin layer of rubber can completely take away your slicing and dicing coordination.}
How about YOU, do you have a trick to remove berry stains from your hands?
Or do you wear it proudly, like a self-sufficient badge of honor?
~Mavis
Madam Chow says
Great tip – I needed that! I’ve been pitting, freezing, baking with, and making jam with sour cherries. 16 quarts worth.
Tammy says
Huh, wonder if this would work five days after the fact? My hands are still stained from pitting about 30 pounds of sweet cherries!
Mavis Butterfield says
5 days? Wow!!
Jill Frank says
My hands are always stained after picking blackberries. The areas that are worse are under and around the fingernails. I may have to try this – although with all those cuts I get, the lemon juice may not be a good idea. 😉 I guess it depends on how bad I want clean hands.
Marivene says
I have always found the easiest way to remove berry, cherry or beet stains from my hands was to use Comet to scour either a tub or a sink. When I am finished, the stains are gone from my hands, & the tub or sink is clean, too – – bonus!
Mavis says
And your hands don’t have any sort of reaction to it? My hands must be sensitive cause I always have to wear gloves!
Chris says
Wow. This worked. Been picking, washing and freezing wild blackberries for two days, my hands were awful.
Linda says
My finger tips and cuticles always turn dark regardless of which fruit I am preparing for canning. I put my fruits in lemon juice for use fruit fresh and they are still dark
David Colton says
Lemon juice paste didn’t make a dent in my hands saturated with blueberry stain. My wife suggested I make a paste out of dish washing detergent. I cut open a pod and scrubbed my hand with a scouring pad and pretty hot water. Worked like magic to take ALL the stains off my hands. Thank you everybody for this thread!
Jill says
Blueberries are different from, say, blackberries. For blueberries I just run water as hot as I can stand it over the stain. Before you run it over fabric, make sure the fabric won’t shrink.
Jill says
The lemon juice worked beautifully to remove blackberry stains from my hands. Thanks!
Sabrina Wakeham says
Thank you for the lemon juice and cornmeal tip. I have tried many things and nothing would remove the Cherry stains from my hand. It didn’t even take the 2 minutes.
Thank you, thank you!!!