My hands are so dry and cracked, help!

[wastingaway]

My hands feel like ancient papyrus, and if I bend a finger or close my fist up, bloody cracks open. It's horrid.

I'm trying to keep them moisturised, using Doublebase.

What's the best thing I can use/do to help them heal?

dh has horrendous hands because of his work - having been through almost every cream imaginable over the years I bought him some Body Shop Hemp handcream and he'd been RAVING about it

I rubbed some Flexitol in last night before bed and I can see the difference already. I'll need something else for daytime though.

I have a huge problem with dry hands. We are doing our house up and there is loads of bare lime plaster everywhere, combined with all the cold weather and dodgy central heating means hands like a corpse!

I have been using the Burts Bees system, it is a bag with two types of hand cream, some cuticle cream and some very good quality cotton gloves, which you wear at night. My hands feel about a trillion times better.

Oh and another vote for the Bodyshop Hemp cream, I have been using that on my similarly ravaged face and it has worked miracles!

What works amazingly is Lanisoh...pure lanolin sold for bf for cracked nipples. Works v. quickly too.

When my hands get bad I soak them in warm water with some emollient or aromatherapy bath oil (real one, not a branded oil with teeny tiny bit of essential oil), then really slap on the aqueous cream onto damp hands, then put gloves on and leave all night. I buy mine from Boots in the first aid section.

8 hour cream is good for staving off really sore bits during the day