Ladies and gentlemen who do this kind of work and still give a damn about their manicures, here’s one for you: if you do much painting you know just being around drying paint sucks the moisture out of your skin and hair, and just handling the general filth of construction dessicates your flesh.  My hands get so dry that my fingertips start shedding and the skin around my joints cracks and bleeds.  I got a good deal on a 100-count box of surgical gloves — they fit tightly and you can still do most tasks except dial your phone.  I put on a heavy smear of good hand lotion, currently Olay Ultra Moisturizing, and put on the gloves before work.  Also helps with cleanup after painting.  Of course some jobs rip the gloves and I’m working with my fingertips exposed like Zhivago and Laura over that long cold winter in the movie.  You can always start a fresh pair.  It’s amazing how dry my skin still is when I remove the gloves at the end of the day, but not as dry as it would have been.

As for fingernails, forget it.  I’ve had to cut mine down to fingertip level.  Maybe with a heavy acrylic coating to reinforce them I could grow them out, but it’s risky.  Bending a nail, even a reinforced one, hurts like hell.  I miss my nails.

Lysol toilet bowl cleaner — the thick gel type — takes red soft drink stains out of a white formica countertop.  And a little of it on a toothbrush gets stains and mildew out of grout.

Greased Lightning is so great I could write a whole blog about it.  Maybe I will.

Filthy shower stalls call for extreme measures. Yeah, I know you’re not supposed to use abrasive chemicals on fiberglass, but when they only get cleaned once a year I could be tickling them with wimpy gentle liquid soap for hours and getting nowhere with the accumulated soap scum, mildew and outer layers of human flesh. I spray them with Greased Lightning, let it soak in for 15 minutes then use one of those flat green nylon scrubbers. If that doesn’t take it off I go with very fine steel wool and powdered cleanser (i.e., Ajax). If the finish is dull when I’m done, I sometimes renew it with Armor All — just the walls not the floor of the tub because it would be too slippery. Spray on the Armor All, wait a bit and then polish with a soft cloth.
The Greased Lightning/ nylon scrubber method works on soap scummy ceramic tile, also. A little toilet bowl cleaner on a toothbrush gets mold out of the grout and sometimes even cleans up stained caulking if its not too gross.
Greased Lightning works great on the chrome parts, too — just spray on, let it soak, toothbrush it. Rinse and then shine it with some window cleaner. For filthy hot/ cold handles, pop out the center button, remove the plastic parts, put them in the sink and spray inside and out wth good old GL. Wait awhile, then scrub or just rinse.

Oil-base Rustoleum paints right over cooking grease, fly specks and nicotine, at least when that stuff is on steel suspended-ceiling tracks. No need to clean them first, unless like me you can’t stand the idea of that gunk being underneath your new paint job. Who knew? I still can’t believe it. But I tried it more than a day ago and it’s not bleeding through.