[jacquesm]

Exercising caution is good advice, but you can overdo it too. The kind of stuff I got up to with my chemistry set 42 years ago would probably scare the pants of you but I learned a lot and the worst that ever happened was that I lost some glassware. Safety glasses, good ventilation, gloves when you need them and patience are the most important ingredients here, as well as a good textbook or course. You can have hours of fun and learn a lot for very little money, the real dangers are usually in stuff that goes 'foom' is larger quantities than advised and stuff that poisons you, and with MSDS online that is a lot safer today than it used to be when I was a kid.

[jcims]

The tree F's of safety in home chemistry: fans, fire extinguishers and feet.

[jacquesm]

Fire extinguisher is a good one, also important, to know what will put out a particular fire and what ends up making things (much) worse.

[anesmike]

hot glass looks like cold glass.

[ddsea]

This quote made me wonder about analogs in other activities, e.g. woodworking.

[jcims]

lol how about the one p of woodworking: pushsticks

[jacquesm]

And no gloves. Gloves can get caught.

[andrewflnr]

Is that feet as in "wear closed toed shoes" or as in running away if necessary?

[jacquesm]

Fans to ventilate, fire extinguisher for when things go wrong, feet for when the fire extinguisher isn't enough.