Image by Pawel Grzegorz from Pixabay
Winter can be a tough season for the skin on our hands, and our nails. Skin and nails can become dry and dehydrated from a combination of being inside with central heating, washing hands in overly hot water with oil stripping soaps and hand sanitizers, and outside in the cold and wind.
In extreme circumstances this can lead to cracks and sores on the finger and thumb tips. Skin cracks and sores are not only painful and unsightly, they reduce our dexterity and the things we want to touch. Any split in the skin can also lead to the possibility of infection.
I am Clare from lovely hands and I have a few product suggestions to help keep hands healthy and looking good through the winter. Whether you view hand care as a basic staple or a treat, lovely hands has products to suit you and your lifestyle.
Winter hand care.
People will use a hand cream that suits them. Quite often greasiness or fragrance can put people off using them. 2 top tip’s to minimise greasiness;
1. Put a smaller amount of product on the back of one hand than you think you need
2. Its rare that anyone needs hand cream on their palm, and this could be where the greasy perception comes from. So rub the back of one hand against the back of the other hand, add more cream if necessary.
The range of hand creams at lovely hands include light and rich creams, a balm and sheilding lotions. Having dealt with greasiness, that leaves fragrance. The fragrance will be described on the product description, but as a quick guide Gloves in a Bottle and Working Hands are fragrance free, Badger balm has a minimal natural fragrance, OPI, Orly, Kaseo, Nail Lux and Retinol do have light fragrances as described. Wearing cotton gloves over the hand cream can help warm the skin and aid absorption of product.
Click here to view the range. Click here for cotton gloves.
Winter hand treatments.
A treatment involves taking a bit of ‘me time’, perhaps in front of the TV will work for you. An exfoliating treatment and / or a mask can really stimulate the skin on your hands to retain more moisture and look plumped up and refreshed.
Kaseo exfoliator and mask are £9 each. Plastic bags are £2 for 10. The plastic bags are worn over the mask to prevent mess and to keep warmth in, to help the product soften the skin.
Skin republic hand repair is a glove shaped mask that can be applied and re-used a few times as long as its kept air tight. £5.50.
Winter nail care.
In my opinion if the nail has enough natural oil in it you will not have many problems to deal with. How many people have nails like these? My nails would not be as good without regular applications of specific nail / cuticle products throughout the day, and that is why I encourage everyone to do the same even if they are wearing treatment polishes or nail varnishes. I include in this acrylic and gel treatments. It boggles the mind to imagine a small drop of nail oil rubbed in over layers of gel could penetrate down to the nail itself but I can assure you it does and your nail technician will notice the difference.
I have 3 product formats / textures for nail moisturisers – balm, creme and oil. The products will absorb quickly and not leave behind any greasiness. Top tip, as per the hand cream, apply a litlte less than you think you need, you can always apply more after.
Nail treatment polishes.
Without nailtiques available I have listed Orly and Jessica products. There is a new PROTEIN FORMULA product launch due in January 2022 by the former distrbutor of nailtiques. They are claiming that they are basing their range as closely as possible on the nailtiques formulas and they have been extensively testing on people for the past year. The launch is now almost here, after being significantly delayed because of Covid. Register for my mailing list here to be notified of this launch [email protected].
To find out why nailtiques won’t be back click here.