I always thought dish gloves were stupid, and also, sort of precious. Like, aw, what are you trying to protect your oh-so-delicate fingertips from? It’s only water! Don’t you ever wash your hands?
Of course, I realize now that I was being ignorant, because in an ironic twist of fate, I have become one of those dainty people who must wear gloves when I wash dishes.
As I’ve previously discussed on this site, I have mad eczema, and this past winter, it decided to take up permanent residence on my hands. Getting my hands wet only exacerbates the problem, but there’s really no way to completely avoid water, so I’d just sort of resigned myself to having itchy, painful, flaky, cracked skin until the end of time.
Then on a visit home, I noticed that my mom had dish gloves. Oh, yeah! Dish gloves. Honestly, I’d completely forgotten they’d existed since I made fun of my college roommate for using them. But I was desperate for relief, so I promptly hit up Amazon Prime to ensure a pair of my own rubber gloves would be awaiting me when I got home. I settled on the Casabella Waterblock Premium Gloves in Aqua Blue because they were pretty cheap at just $9, and they matched the rest of my famously aqua blue kitchen.
They ended up being a great choice, if I do say so myself. Unlike the super loose fit typical of most dish gloves I was familiar with, the Casabella gloves fit snuggly and are tapered at the wrist. Notably, the gloves have some extra material at the wrist that’s supposed to fold over like a cuff. This cuff feature, combined with the tight fit, ensures that literally no water will ever touch your skin or get inside the glove. I also found the rubber of the Casabellas to be a bit thinner than that of your average dish gloves, so you can more easily grasp and scrub your dishes without rubber gloves flopping all over the place, impeding the whole process.
And I must admit, the Casabellas have enlightened me to the oddly satisfying feeling of touching water without actually touching water. I can use hotter water to scrub off dried on food because I don’t have to worry about burning myself. I can go to town with my sponge on a big pot without feeling stressed about the fact that I’ve probably angered my eczema and will pay the price in the form of physical pain for the next few hours.
The only con: Now, I don’t have any excuse not to wash the dishes.