I have been concentrating on smoke firings recently. Jolly good fun especially when mixed with a moderate quantity of alcohol. The main issue is cleaning the pots after they have cooled. I usually remove the ash with a nylon scouring pad from the kitchen but this can damage the fine surface detail on the pot.

The couple of weekends ago, while looking through a Sunday colour supplement I ran across an ad for a pair of nylon beauty treatment gloves for sluffing of dead skin – it was a slow evening with no car shows on TV. What a good idea, I’m all in favour of finding new uses for things. So to cut a long story short, bought them, tried them, brilliant. Cleaned the ash and burnt on wood off really well without damaging the pots surface. The pieces came up beautifully as you can see from the pictures above.

So what about the beauty tips I hear you ask. Well………… I was going to have a bath the other day I and I remembered the nylon gloves and thought, why not give them ago. If they work on ladies delicate skin, then a man that uses Swarfega and wire wool for skin care should be fine………………... I used the gloves on my face the same way as I would a flannel and only stopped rubbing then my skin started to tingle. I finished the bath with my face feeling a bit tender and only realised what I had done when I checked in the mirror. I looked like a burn victim. I must have removed several dermal layers and while not quite bleeding my face was swelling and even putting Savlon or E45 cream on nearly killed me. I won’t even tell you what happened when I went into town later in the day having forgotten about the lack of skin. Suffice it to say, I got some horrified looks.

And the moral of the story? Not sure, but there must be one. Maybe, stick to Swarfega and wire wool?