While I’ll shell out major money for face or body products, my extremities are totally neglected—especially my dry hands. Every winter my hands end up looking like a cracked, bleeding, dry, flaky horror show. But this season I decided to take serious measures to remedy the problem.
There are a lot more options than your standard hand lotion on store shelves these days, says Joshua Zeichner, M.D., the director of cosmetic and clinical research in dermatology at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City. The newest generation of hand creams, he explains, contain a combination of occlusives, such as petrolatum, that act as a barrier layer to prevent moisture from leaving your skin; humectants, like hyaluronic acid, which help your skin hold onto more water; and emollients (such as oils) which can do both. Not only that, but they also have “barrier repair ingredients like ceramides and specialized salts to coat the skin like a glove, which prevents exposure to environmental stressors like water or irritants,” he adds.
Wait up. Water is an “environmental stressor”? In fact, yes, says Zeichner. When you wash your hands—especially if you wash them in hot water—you strip off the natural oils that help keep your skin hydrated. “Over washing, scrubbing, or sanitizing may lead to skin barrier disruption—dried out, cracked outer layers which lead to loss of hydration and inflammation,” adds Zeichner.
Translation: If I was really going to see improvement, I was going to have to also include some new habits in my hand-care regimen. In addition to applying moisturizing hand-focused products, I needed to wash my hands less, and do it more mindfully. Zeichner also recommends following a few basic rules to avoid cracked, dry hands:
Treat dry hands at the very first sign of symptoms—large cracks or fissures can be difficult to treat if you wait too long. (Uh, too late, but good to know!)
Apply a hand cream or treatment at least twice daily—but you really should be applying it after every hand wash or the moment they begin to feel dry again.
If you’re prone to dry, cracked hands try to avoid hand sanitizers, which are high in alcohol. And go for gentle cleansing soaps that are lipid-free (these cleansers are more moisturizing than traditional antibacterial types).
If you develop cracks on your skin or fingers (like I do), you can apply bacitracin or hydrocortisone 1 percent ointment to the open area twice daily for up to two weeks, then wrap with a Band-Aid.
All of these tips have been helpful in helping me minimize how dry my hands get during winter. But I still wanted to know what I could do to help my dry, itchy skin feel better ASAP. So I tried several different hand treatments to take my hands from rough to repaired. And I’m so glad I did. Here’s how it went, plus a few more popular hand treatments (that I didn’t test) below.
This means, you take one article, and you use the article distribution system. It will generate thousands of unique versions of your article, and publish those unique articles to hundreds of websites that are related to your niche.
Take a look at our comprehensive guide to the best and most popular information ebooks and products available today on Detoxing, Colon Cleansing, Weight Loss and Dating and Romance. They are all in one spot, easy to find and compere to make a quick selection for the product that best fits your needs or wants.
So browse through a category and make your preferred selection and come back here to read more choice articles and get a few more helpful tips on ways to help your enhancement.
As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. “saubiosaubiosuccess.com is a participant in third party affiliate and advertising programs; The Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, Awin network, and other affiliate advertising programs are designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees and commissions by advertising and linking to products on other sites and on Amazon.com. Amazon and the Amazon logo are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc, or its affiliates.”
We use anonymous cookies and various 3rd-party services to optimise and to offer you a better, more personalised, browsing experience with advanced accessibility enhancements.
Dismiss
Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes.The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Some key things to keep in mind both when we’re…
.jpg "The Best Hand Creams With SPF, According to Dermatologists")
.png "The Best Puffer Jackets to Get You Through Winter 2024")
