My hands have gone to pot!

[TheLemonisinPlay]

I'm generally a thinker rather than a doer in my job, but recent events have caused me to be a lot more hands on, and now my hands are suffering.

1- My hands (it doesn't matter what I use on them or that I always wear gloves to wash up etc. ) are dry like sandpaper and feel saggy.
2- I have terrible hangnails.
3- My cuticles are as dry as anything.
4- My nails will only grow 2mm of white tip before snapping off
5- The nails look scuffed and ridged.

I'm sure it's not medical or mineral based, just that i'm not used to hard graft. Does anyone have any recommendations on how I can get my hands back to standard please? Any advice is welcome!

When I was working (on a career break) I had to wash my hands a million times a day so they were a wreck. My sister got me a voucher for a Parafin manicure and a clear gel polish. Then I used the soap and glory hand food hand cream a couple times a day and they ain't too bad now. I did try the Clarins hand cream as it was recommended but I didn't think it was that good.

L'occtaine Shea butter is a great hand cream, plus regular manicures I guess?

My hands were absolutely awful - all started with having children so put it down to one of these random things which you end up with post baby.

Then I read that antibacterial soaps are really bad for your hands - and I started using these soaps after I had kids. So I stopped using antibacterials soap and just use normal (still from a pump dispenser) and my hands have gone back to normal.

Not sure if it's the same problem as you - for me it was mostly very, very dry cracked skin which was extremely painful - but may be worth a shot if you use antibacterial soap??

Body Shop Hemp hand cream. It's magic! Give it a few days and you will be very surprised.

Agree withJimmy hemp cream is brilliant.

I also use glycerin hand soap which is what really made a difference to my hands. Have no problems even though I have to wash my hands at least 15 times a day. Used to be at the docs constantly with dermatitis and cracked, sore and bleeding hands.

I'm slathering on the L'Occitane and The Body Shop Rose hand cream (the smell of the hemp one makes me nauseous), but it's not touching them. The paraffin treatment sounds interesting though. My knuckles are also really itchy- very odd.

Yep to the body shop hemp hand cream, it really is brilliant and not to expensive either if you order on line with one of their many codes!

Vaseline smothered all over hands, cotton gloves on, go to bed. I also stopped wearing rings, bracelets and watch and made a point of really thoroughly drying my hands after washing. I kept clean flannels in my bag to dry my hands on when out and about.

Oh and I read somewhere that when you do the washing up, put hand cream on before the rubber gloves. The heat of the washing up water helps the cream to absorb. I've tried it and it's lovely.

Absolutely agree about the antibacterial soap. Stop using it if you are and just use regular pump hand soap. My hands were a flaky, dry awful mess until I stopped using antibacterial hand wash. Now they are back to normal & I'm using LESS hand cream than I was back when I was using the antibacterial wash (& wondering why my hands were still so dry despite all the hand cream!!)