Help make my hands worthy of this ring!

[lemniscate]

Just had my 5th wedding anniversary and completely unexpectedly DH bought me a wonderful diamond eternity ring. It's beautiful and sparkly but my hands look a bloody mess :( Two small children mean I'm forever washing them after nappies, cooking, cleaning up, wiping faces etc. And I bite my nails too.

So I need to make my hands worthy of my ring! Any top tips for

a) stopping biting nails after 25 years of doing so (they're not completely bitten down, are a nice shape but just bitten)
b) making my dry, red, sore hands look more 35 year old then 75 year old

Thanks!

Ahhh what a lovely surprise!

My hands are also pretty awful with years and years of nailbiting.

I keep my nails short and cut straight across rather than make them rounded.
Buy some nice nail varnish. There are some lovely colours out at the moment.
This usually keeps me from biting and picking them.

I keep hand cream in every room in the house and every handbag so I have no excuse to keep re applying it.

I'm sure the ring will look absolutely gorgeous on. Can we see it?!

Don't know about the nail-biting, but I recently used Dove 'Pro-age' body butter or something like that - the one that comes in a dark red tub with a screw off lid - and it really fixed my dry red buggy-pushing-in-the-wind-beaten knuckles. It was on half price so about £4 and well worth it!

It looks like this. Very sparkly!

VillaEphrusi - I have the same knuckles as you. Such a delightful shade of red, aren't they? :)

For an intensive moisture get some of those soft cotton gloves (think Boots do them), then apply your favourite cream just before bed, put on the gloves and wear overnight.

I'd treat myself to a posh manicure somewhere, you deserve it! They will moisturise your hands, some places use wax, all sorts of tricks to really moisturise and soften hands. Then a nice shape and polish, will cost a fortune so there's no way you'll want to ruin it all by biting your nails
I have a fab Elizabeth Arden 8 hour hand cream that works wonders too.
Lucky you re new ring! Gorgeous!

Ok, I'm off to Boots tomorrow:

• scrub
• handcream (multiple bottles to keep everywhere)
• gloves
• nail varnish

Thank you all :)

Any particular handcream recommendations? I have odd bottles in the house (a Norwegian formula thing, some vaseline) so wondering if those are as good as any - is it just about putting cream on my hands lots rather than worrying about exactly what cream to use?

Cross posted with you above!

www.cheapsmells.com/viewProduct.php?id=6927

For nail biting, try the solution you paint on that tastes nasty? I became immune to that after a while, and just used Will power, and kept telling myself I would have beautiful nails soon and I didn't want to bite them anyway as I probably had bits of poo under them from changing so many nappies! When I broke the habit I used the sally hansen stuff for making them grow, can't remember name atm, Will come back.
Use hand cream as often as you remember, get cuticle oil or if broke use olive oil. Take vitamin e capsules.I bit my nails for twenty years, but have been doing this for 2 years and they are lovely now!
How lovely of your dp too :)

My daily cream of choice is Lush "helpful hands" but for bad times I use Elizabeth Arden 8 Hour Cream. Not the 8 hour cream handcream (which is part of the "8 hour range"), but the 8 hour cream. The slightly greasy, orange stuff that you can use everywhere (it is also a FAB lipbalm). It takes a while to soak in, but use it before bed with cotton gloves as suggested earlier, or just when you don't have much to do (ha!) and it makes such a difference. It's magic.

Forgot to say congratulations on the lovely ring! Yes my knuckles are usually a sort of unbecoming beetroot shade Hope the warmer weather will help too.

Love the ring!

Last night I found some ancient Boots foot scrub and Body Shop coconut body butter at the back of the bathroom cupboard. Despite neither technically being for my hands, they seemed to do the trick :o So I'll carry on with that.

Bought some cuticle/nail oil today and also some nail varnish. Now when the baby goes to sleep I might get chance to pamper myself!

Thanks all :)