Tips for the care of your hands

The hands are one of the areas of our body that we show most. Together with the face, hands are always at sight (unless we are covering them with gloves). However, not much attention is shown to them!

Hands dry out due to different reasons:

• Aging.
• Sun exposure.
• Lack of nutrients.
• Contact with cleaning and conventional hygiene products.
• Extreme temperature changes.
• Tobacco use.

For this reason, it is essential to start hydrating them as soon as possible, like we do with the face and the rest of the body.

7 tips for perfect hands

1. When washing them, do it with warm almost cold water. Hot water despite can be pleasant especially in wintertime, dries out the skin greatly and causes dehydration. We also recommend you using a neutral pH soap and not to rub too much.
2. Apply hydrant cream often. At least you should hydrate them with a specific cream twice a day, in the morning and at night before going to bed. But if your hands are prone to dry out we recommend you to have always with you a hydrant hand cream in your bag and to apply it as many times as you think it is necessary.
3. In Winter protect them with gloves. Cold and winter are big enemies of your hands especially if you have dry skin. In the coldest days, the best is to cover them with gloves.
4. Use creams with solar protection factor. When you go to the beach or to the swimming pool, don´t forget to also apply the solar protector also on your hands if you do not want the unwanted solar spots to appear. And during the whole year but, especially in spring and summer, use cream or lotion with SPF if you are going to be a long time outside.
5. Use gloves to do housework. Chemical products, detergents and water deteriorate hands a lot and, also nails. So, the best protection is to do all the housework with gloves.
6. Exfoliate your hands often. One of the signs that our hands are getting old is the more and more rough texture of the skin. And the first step to avoid deteriorated hands consists in exfoliating them to eliminate dead cells that accumulate in the external layer of the skin and give an unpleasant sensation of roughness. We can do the exfoliation in a simple way with complete natural products. So, we will avoid the aggressive effects that conventional exfoliants have on our skin. For hands we can use sugar or sea salt. If we have very dry hands, we can mix it with some olive or Argan oil. We will massage them gently as if we were soaping them and after, we will rinse them with warm or cold water. We can exfoliate them once a week.
7. Shock treatment. If at some point you feel your hands rougher and more damaged, apply a thick layer of cream before going to bed and cover them with gloves. You will get up with perfect hands.

Cold hands?

Cold hands are a symptom of bad blood flow in the limbs. Generally, those who suffer from this normally have cold feet too.

It is important to treat this imbalance for the blood to flow correctly in the limbs so it can provide the necessary nutrients in a natural way.

We suggest you some remedies:

• Massage your hands with ginger oil or any other oil that provides heat.
• Consume moderate amounts of spicy spices (cayenne pepper, ginger, etc.).
• Doing hand baths alternating cold and hot water.
• Wrap the hands up with woollen gloves or of any other natural fabric.
• Drink ginkgo biloba infusions at seasons as they improve blood flow in the limbs.

Excessive sweating

An excess of sweating can also damage the aspect of our hands. Besides, we should keep in mind that it can be a nervous disorder.

To treat it naturally, we can use spores of vegetal sulphur. We will apply this natural remedy, that we can obtain in health food shops, in the hands as if it was talc powder.

Look after the nails

Remember that nails can totally change the aspect of your hands.

Argan oil is highly effective to strengthen weaken, fragile and open in layer nails. This oil has high content in lupeol, a substance with anti-inflammatory activity that favours the keratinocytes (cells that produce keratin, the main component of the epidermis, nails and hair).

To have pretty nails apart from having your manicure done regularly, you should have a balanced nutrition based on the consumption of fruit and fresh vegetables, legumes, first quality oils, whole cereals, nuts and seeds.

Any type of sign or mark that appears on the nails can indicate a lack of nutrients. The most common are small white marks or perpendicular lines that appear in some nails or when they easily break.

Prevent arthritis

Another of the health problems that can affect our hands is arthritis, a degenerative disease that can deform fingers severely.

If we have family history or start suffering the first symptoms, we should wash our hands with clay leaving it to work for 15 or 30 minutes till it dries.

We should neither forget the medicinal supplements that can help us to delay the appearance of this disease:

• Essential fatty acids.
• Bromelain.
• Calcium.
• Shark cartilage.
• Curcuma.
• Magnesium.
• Selenium.
• Collagen.
• Vitamin C.
• Silicon.

We hope that with this list of tips, for sure, you will achieve having pretty and well looked after hands.

Until the next time!