By With the amount of handwashing that nurses do on a daily basis, dry, cracked hands are no joke – and during the colder winter months making an entrance across much of the country, it’s so much worse! Hands can easily become split, sore, chapped, they can feel like they are burning, and they can even bleed from the constant hand-washing. Fortunately, there are several things you can do to help your hands either avoid the painful dryness or recover from it, and it goes way beyond just using a common lotion – you need to start at the very source of the dryness – the washing process – and make a change or two there.
Why Handwashing Dries the Skin So Much
Every time you wash your hands, you remove natural oils that your body has created to keep the skin moisturized. These oils take time to reproduce, and when you frequently wash your hands as nurses do, we remove oils faster than we can produce them. Chemicals like phthalates, sulfates, dyes, and paragons found in many soaps can also cause miserable skin conditions, especially antibacterial soaps and liquid soaps. It can all cause the super-dry, burning, red skin we dread, and it’s called irritant contact dermatitis.
Best Prevention and Remedies for Dry, Cracked Hands
The obvious choice for treatment and prevention would be lotion; however, not all lotions are the same, and not all lotions will help. Many of them contain not only water and chemicals, but also alcohol – both of which will dry out the skin! Natural lotions and moisturizers that contain ingredients like coconut oil, oatmeal, olive oil, shea butter, honey, and almond extracts, just to name a few, will do more than moisturize; they’ll also protect your skin from dryness.
Your number one weapon, however, is going to be the type of soap you use to wash those hands. Unfortunately, mainstream soaps contain harsh chemical ingredients like triclosan, lye, sodium lauryl sulfate, synthetic dyes, and polypropylene. What do we recommend instead? A natural soap that is loaded with moisturizing, cleansing, natural ingredients that won’t strip your hands of the oils they so desperately need to avoid the burning, itching, rash or irritation – and one of the best soaps we’ve found is one from a company called sudHeadz.
SudHeadz Oatmeal Bar Soap
SudHeadz makes an incredible new oatmeal soap that has zero alcohol in it; it also contains none of the dyes, sulfates, phthalates, and other nasty things that all contribute to dry skin. SudHeadz isn’t made with a bunch of chemicals or synthetic ingredients, but the hand-made exfoliating soap is made with oatmeal, which works wonders on the skin. It cleanses thoroughly without making your skin feel like it’s on fire!
Other than its sensational features, one of the best parts of this soap is that you can get the soap delivered straight to your house with a subscription (or you can just buy a bar as you please). Prices are super reasonable, and the company offers free shipping for orders over $24.00.
It’s important that nurses take care of their hands – after all, it is a nurse’s hands that care for patients and save lives! Order sudHeadz oatmeal bar soap and grab a good lotion that’ll work as hard as you do to protect the hands that so many depend upon.
