When you hurt yourself you are never to pleased if you have to put on a plaster to protect the wound. However sometimes when you remove plasters the pain can be same as when you got hurt in the first place. This is because the plaster often pulls on the wound and all your hairs surrounding it. You might be getting a leg wax free of charge but you’d rather go to a professional… Afterwards you then have to manage the bits of greyish glue that is stuck to your skin. Here are our tips for removing a plaster without all the hassle or causing any pain!
1) Beforehand…
If you think that you are going to have to wear a plaster for a few days, make sure that you shave the area around the wound which could otherwise stick to the sticky part of the plaster. Therefore you don’t have to worry about the healing process of the cut.
Make sure that you can also stop the bleeding and clean and disinfect the cut so as to avoid non-dried scabs of blood sticking to the plaster. This will prevent the scab from reopening or causing any pain when you remove the plaster. Applying an antibiotic cream or Vaseline will also prevent the cut from sticking by keeping the area moist.
If your cut is recent and it is causing a lot of pain you could perhaps put an ice cube onto the area so as to anesthetize the area before removing the plaster.
2) Use olive, sweet almond or baby oil
Apply a little oil around the sticky areas of the plaster. You can use a cotton bud or a piece of cotton or simply your finger to apply the oil. If you’d like to reapply a plaster afterwards, you should think about drying the area a little bit before sticking it down.
3) Hair dryer
For a few seconds, blow air from the hair dryer above the sticky part so as to dissolve the glue. The plaster with unstick itself on its own afterwards.
4) Alcohol
The alcohol will help to dissolve the glue so as to help you to remove the plaster without any pain. You can choose a modified alcohol or a drinking alcohol like vodka. Pour a little of the alcohol onto a cotton and the pass this cotton around the sticky parts of the plaster. Try not to put too much onto the plaster otherwise it will run everywhere especially on the wound… ouch!
5) Physiological saline
A piece of cotton soaked with physiological saline will work wonders on a plaster that refuses to unstick itself.
6) How do you remove any gluey marks?
The majority of solutions discussed above can also remove gluey marks. We particularly recommend alcohol despite the fact that it irritates and dries out the skin. Oils can of course also remove sticky marks without leaving any trace. You need to remember however to dry the skin afterwards if you’d like to stick on another plaster.
Sources : Wikihow ; PassionSanté ; IsatisBleu
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