As you prepare fresh jalapeno peppers by cutting, slicing and seeding them, take care to ensure you do not leave jalapeno pepper oil on your skin. If you inadvertently spread this oil onto your face, eyes, nose or mouth, you can inflict painful pepper oil burns on yourself. Sometimes even leaving the oils on your hands for an extended period will cause burns to your skin. Remove jalapeno pepper oil from your hands immediately when you finish preparing the peppers.
Wash your hands immediately when you finish working with the jalapeno peppers. Use the hand soap and lather your hands completely for at least 20 seconds to remove as much of the jalapeno pepper oil as possible from your skin. Dry your hands with the towel.
Rub vegetable or olive oil over your hands after washing them if your hands burn from the jalapeno pepper oil. Pour a dime-size amount of oil onto your hands and rub it in thoroughly. Allow the oil to stay on your hand for one to two minutes, then rinse your hands with water and dry them.
Rub isopropyl alcohol over your hands to remove the jalapeno oil.
Soak your hands in milk immediately after you finish applying the isopropyl alcohol. Fill a small bowl and submerge your hands beneath the surface of the milk, allowing the milk to soak into your skin to ease the burning. Milk contains casein, which counteracts the capsaicin in jalapeno oil. Soak your hands for as long as necessary to relieve the burning.