1 doctor agreed: 1  Likely dermatitis: This sounds like a contact dermatitis from a substance you're coming in contact with like a hand cream or soap or a set of gloves you are using. See your doctor or a dermatologist. 2  Burning hands: On the hands the most common causes of redness and burning are chemical irritation of some sort. It can come from soaps, creams, solvents at work or cleaning agents, medicines, possibly something like poison ivy, rarely from a systemic disorder like vasculitis. ...Read more.