Kitchen Garden Forum

A few days ago I foraged some windfall walnuts. Some were still in their green husks. I have been attempting to remove the husks and they have left my hands and especially my fingernails, ,stained black. No amount is scrubbing with soap will clean up my fingernails. I am aware that pickled walnuts turn black but didn't expect my fingernails to do the same. Any idea how I can remove the stain?

Swarfega, a heavy duty hand cleaner, will do the trick, I think. It certainly cleans off red cabbage stains which also tend to persist for days otherwise.

Hardware stores tend to sell it, rather than chemists or supermarkets.

The outer rind or husk outside the nut has been used to dye fabric for centuries.

It IS very potent.

It's possible to remove most of it with lemon juice. I found this on the world wide internet, which gives a bit more detail.

Hello Primrose. I use my shampoo to get rid of any staining on my nails and hands. Put it neat onto the nail brush and it works a treat. It has removed beetroot and blackberry stains with no problems.

I remember having the same problem two years ago - after foraging for walnuts nearby, my hands looked like they had been soaked in dark brown/black shoe polish. I tried all sorts of things to get it off: oil and sugar, toothpaste etc., but no amount of scrubbing would completely shift it, although the colour did get paler, more yellowy. I'm afraid I just had to put up with yellow hands for a while until it gradually faded.

Hopefully yours aren't quite as bad as mine were, and it will come off. But it will be worth it for the walnuts, anyway. Good luck.

Didn,t have any Swarfega in the house so tried lemon juice which helped a little but fingernails still dark black. Had to have a medical examination recently and embarrassingly had to explain reason for dirty looking fingernails . Didn't want them thinking they would have to disinfect the surgery because they had a patient who never washed! Next time I have anything to do with walnut husks I will remember to use disposable gloves!!
Annoyingly most of the walnuts turned out to have withered kernels inside so it wasn't even worth the effort. Guess that's due the poor weather earlier in the year.