I hate having dry hands, but ever since a minor case of early-stage frostbite (sounds cooler than it was) a few years back, I suffer from seriously dry hands at the slightest hint of cold weather. We are talking bad! Cracked, rough skin. Awful. Uncomfortable. And no use getting a great manicure if you have dry sore hands.
Am also acutely aware that hands reveal one’s age and so – this winter, I am On The Case for hands, and can share with you my tried and tested 3-stage guide to softer hands for people with no time to spare on tending to hands:
1. Every week, while cooking, or watching a boring episode of The Apprentice (aren’t they all?) in the kitchen, pour a 10p size pile of salt into one hand, followed by a similar sized blob of olive oil. Exfoliate, exfoliate. Rinse off and marvel at how soft your hands feel. Like a baby!
2. Use Elizabeth Arden 8hour cream (the unscented version, unless you want both your 4 year old and your husband to be appalled) on any particularly troublesome patches.
3. Slather neutrogena’s intensive hand moisturiser on at least once a day. I have tried just about all alternatives out there, such was my devotion to resolving this problem. And this is the best by FAR – incredible consistency, doesn’t leave you with a weird oily film and no scent. Let’s face it, scented hand lotion is super nice (and if that’s what we’re going for, then I’d recommend the diptyque hand lotion, the weleda skin food or even the l’occitane shea hand cream, but I get the sense that they are more about the scent and less about the purpose of Soft Hands. So, you know, let’s stick to function not form in this case.
Done. Simple. Hands soft enough to justify a nice manicure.
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