didn't notice right away cause I was sweating,

Xylene is some nasty stuff.

started burning and I had to take my pants off right there at the job site till it dried up

the stripper, it burned, faster and worse than xylene, but the burning went away faster, xylene tends to linger

wear shoes, and gloves

And eye protection.

MEK is worse

Imagine a drop of that crap in your eye..

Yah I used to not take precautions around caustic substances. Know better now

does not sound fun

I used to work around a tric tank. My hands went numb for a week after forgetting to wear gloves handling parts that had been in the tank.

funny story, we were prepping a small room, maybe 5 by 5 for a coating, we mopped with xylene to clean the floor, let it dry and went in to caulk the corners, a few minutes in, my helper goes " this caulking smells funny" I stop and go , "thats not the caulking, thats xylene" at that moment my head started swimming and I was like, Everybody out, we had to sit in the fresh air for about 30 minutes for our heads to clear