Left handers!

[pollysproggle]

If you're a left handed adult do you have any left handed specific products?

Myself and my DH are left handed, 36 and 40 respectively and don't own anything left handed specific at all. I vaguely remember using a left handed fountain pen in primary school but that's it.
It has never even crossed my mind until now that my life may be made slightly easier if I did.

I've been looking online and it seems you can get a left handed version of anything and everything.
Obviously we get by just fine but are we missing out and just accepting our right handed world when things could be easier?

I'm definitely getting some scissors as this was all prompted by wrapping presents and again tearing the paper every single time but what else is good?

I write with my left hand but do most other things right-handedly. Once had a pair of left handed scissors but I couldn't use them. Cannot hold a spoon in my right hand.

I have adapted to a world set up for right handers, injuring myself many times in the process, but the two things I just can’t deal with are pens whose ink doesn’t dry instantly, and bastarding tin openers.

Oh, and those folders with the metal hoops inside, and spiral bound notebooks which are useless.

DH is a leftie, he doesn't have anything designed for lefthhanders though he can only use some (right handed) tin openers.

The only thing we've come across where the chirality mattered is kayak paddles - it took us a while to realise there are two configurations and that it makes a difference depending on your dominant hand. Neither of us had noticed until an instructor pointed it out that you naturally grip with one hand and it slides within the other.

@evenBetter
I actually use those ring bound notebooks upside down!

I'm predominantly a leftie and always write with my left hand, although I can write with both. Left just feels more comfortable. Most other things are done with my right hand though. I tried left handed scissors once and couldn't get on with them! Definitely worth a try though

I love my left handed dressmaking scissors but a cutting wheel is even better.
I may invest in a left handed can opener.

I've not tried a cutting wheel. Need to give it a go. Once I get a proper sewing space set up somewhere in my crowded house.

Y-shaped peeler - so much easier, I thought I was just crap at peeling things!

I don’t have left-handed scissors, but scissors these days don’t seem to have shaped finger-holes like the ones of my childhood. Those were really uncomfortable to use with the wrong hand, modern ones are fine with either.

We have a top-of-can tin opener, everybody in the house finds it easier to use, not just me.

Growing up and getting stronger hands has definitely helped - there is stuff I found really hard as a child (like scissors and tin openers) that I can do fine now with either hand, and at least part of that is just being stronger.

[quote pollysproggle]@evenBetter
I actually use those ring bound notebooks upside down! [/quote]
Yep I have always done this. Or back to front, if it’s a side-bound notebook.

[quote pollysproggle]@evenBetter
I actually use those ring bound notebooks upside down! [/quote]
That is genius!

I have left-handed dressmaking scissors but I also bought a cutting wheel with a blade that cuts like pinking shears (as L handed pinking shears were nearly impossible to find) I also have left-handed secateurs (which are brilliant) and one small left-handed vegetable knife, although I find the knife hard to use as I grew up adapting my vegetable chopping and bread slicing using right-handed knives so if I use a L handed knife now, my cutting goes wonky.
I would like a left-handed ladle, it's only a minor gripe but the ladle lip is always on the wrong side for me.
I use a swivel peeler but I do have an old-fashioned l handed vegetable peeler in the kitchen somewhere. I'd rather not have too many extra utensils as everyone else in the house is R handed and we don't have the space to have 2 tin openers etc. Maybe an electric tin openers when I get my new dream kitchen

Me son is left handed. I tried buying him scissors but he prefers the average ones. He also uses his knife and fork like a right hander (his preference). The only thing he does find helpful is pens with fast drying ink.

iirc,
Scissor blades are angled (knife blades are not angled).
This makes sense if you sharpen them properly.
That's why LH knife puzzles me but scissors makes sense.

DH is LH and insists he can use RH scissors perfectly well, that there is no need in the world for any LH products.

I like the LH scissors I got LH DS because those scissors stay sharper than all the RH scissors we have. I am slowly learning how to use them (as a RH person using my LH).

At school we had to use dip pens and we were taught italic writing (thick down strokes, thin up strokes) and those left handed nibs were tortuous looking things, and also the inkwells were always on the right hand side.

Playing doubles at tennis with my rh friend was about the only advantage at school that I can think of.

• Scissor blades are angled (knife blades are not angled). This makes sense if you sharpen them properly. That's why LH knife puzzles me but scissors makes sense.*

Scissors aren't so much 'angled' as literally 'handed' - right and left handed versions will be non-superimposable mirror images.
The same can apply to knives, if they're serrated and different one side to the other - I don't know how much difference it makes to the cut.

My son is s lector. He has always had scissors and a tin opener.

None, but I'm going to buy left handed scissors as I used a friend's and found them much more comfortable

My old boss had one of those spiral notepads where the spirals were on the other side.

My DCs are both left handed, they have scissors (including fabric scissors as kids scissors don't cut fabric), a peeler and pencil sharpeners, as well as pencils when they were smaller and needed to practice their grip. We need some more/bigger scissors actually, we mainly have really small ones but they are 6 and 8 now.

I am a leftie, the only thing I have specifically for that is my kayaking paddle, it’s a normal one but twisted ‘the wrong way’. Apart from that, nothing.
Tin opener is normal, but I hold with my left and twist with right. I just adapted.

@Goldensyrupissticky

I have a left handed pencil sharpener which is much less messy for me. Had a left handed fountain pen (still have it) but teacher told my parents I was forbidden to use it as I still smudged.

I have a couple of left handed swords 😁

Have ambidextrous scissors. Left handed power garden tools would be amazing. The buttons are all wrong. My pushchair had a button designed to be used with a single hand, right of course, was such a pain.

Must browse the left handed shop again.

A left handed pencil sharpener ! Is the lack of one why my finger always gets a patch of graphite on it when I sharpen pencils ?

I'm a bit of both but definitely left handed for writing and kitchen knives.

My best purchase was a left handed bread knife having been moaned at throughout childhood for not being able to slice bread without it going wonky...