Basic Care Tips for Your Hands

Your hands are the most ingenious and useful of all tools. You act out your whole life with your hands, whether you're cooking or signing a contract. Yet most people rarely even notice their hands until they're gotten so cracked and dry they've actually started to bleed, or a strange rash gets completely out of control.

Well, that's not the smartest thing you can do and it's not very healthy either. Cracked skin is an open invitation to infection, and an untended rash my spread. It pays to treat your hands with caution. Here are few tips to make sure your hands remain healthy.

- First, be aware of your hands by noticing when they've become dry and chapped, or the cuticles are splitting, or you're getting a rash. To stop scaling, cracking and chapping, especially if you've got naturally dry skin, find a hand cream you like and use it regularly. (Vaseline Intensive Care, Lotion, Nivea cream or Serious Hand Cram from Aramis should do the trick. But since most commercial lotions work fine, the important thing is not so much which one you use as how often you use it.

- If you work with solvents, disinfectants, waxes or other chemicals, protect your hands with waterproof gloves. Also protect them from dry winter air with wool-lined leather gloves.

- It's best not to trim hard, cracked cuticles because that can infect the nail and encourage thicker growth. Instead, keep them soft by massaging cuticle cream or lotion int the nail area or soaking your fingertips in warm water with a dollop of bath oil in it. Then gently push back the cuticle with a finger tip or a q-tip.

- Too much sun will age the skin on your hands as fast as skin anywhere else - faster, in fact because hands are exposed most of the time. So use a sunscreen outdoors or a combination moisturizer/sunscreen to prevent liver spots or dryness.