October soil is colder than summer soil, and a little damp. You dig a hole for tulip or daffodil bulbs, push the earth back with your fingertips, water it in. In the kitchen, pots stay on the heat for longer. Root vegetables are scrubbed and peeled, and the washing up is done between stirrings. Autumn is the season in which the hands meet soil, water and heat.
Prevention, gloves before wet work and water that is not too hot, is a subject we have covered elsewhere. In practice, though, the gloves are forgotten, or the bulbs are planted bare-handed for the pleasure of the soil, and by the time you notice, the back of the hand has gone pale and powdery.
The subject of this article is the hand after the work is done. What has happened to it after soil, water, detergent and heat, and the four steps that bring it back.
What has happened to the hands
Soil draws water out of the hands. Dry or damp, it rubs away the film of sebum on the surface of the skin, and its fine particles lodge around the nails and in the creases of the knuckles. Hands feel rough after gardening not only because they are dirty but because they are dry.
Water and detergent dissolve the sebum film and carry it away. Washing dishes, rinsing a board, scouring a pan: with each repetition the film that held moisture in the outer layer of the skin grows thinner, and the tightness begins as soon as the hands are dry. Hot water hastens all of this.
Then there is heat. Steam from a pot, the oven door, spitting oil. Heat evaporates moisture from the hands, and the skin on the back of the hand, thinner than the face, feels the dryness first. It is fair to say that hands straight after this kind of work are at their driest point of the day.
By way of prevention, gloves are recommended for washing up, cleaning and gardening. Put them on only when the hands are completely dry, and choose powder-free or latex-free gloves to limit irritation. We have written more about prevention in protecting the hands from wet work; from here, this article turns to what happens afterwards.
Bringing the hands back in four movements
Settling the order in advance removes any need to think. Soie proposes the following four steps.
- Wash in lukewarm water. The more soil or grease there is to remove, the more tempting hot water becomes, but heat strips sebum. Use lukewarm water, work a gentle soap into a generous lather, and wash by enveloping the hands in foam.
- Lift the soil from around the nails without scrubbing. For earth left at the base of the nails and along the sides of the fingers, leave the lather in place for a moment, then stroke it away with the pad of a finger. A stiff brush used hard damages the skin around the nails, which dries most readily of all.
- Rinse thoroughly and pat dry. Soap left on the skin leads to roughness. After rinsing, press a towel against the hands rather than rubbing, and leave no droplets. Water lingers especially between the fingers and around the nails.
- Apply the serum at once. Immediately after drying, while the hands are still soft, take one or two pearl-sized drops on the back of one hand and bring the hands together to spread it. Those few seconds, compared with applying once the skin has dried out, make the difference in how the hands feel.
Taken together, the four movements need less than two minutes. What matters is that the work ends with a moment set aside for bringing the hands back. Before brushing off the soil and moving to the next task, stop at the basin. That alone changes how the hands feel the next morning.
A little longer at the nails and the knuckles
When spreading the serum after gardening or cooking, give two places extra time. The first is the skin around the nails. Where soil has lodged and water has lingered, hangnails and dryness appear soonest. As the last step, press gently around each nail.
The second is the knuckles. Planting bulbs, gripping a knife, lifting a pot: the skin over the joints stretches and folds many times over, and when it dries the fine lines there show. Stroke each finger lightly in turn so the moisture reaches into the creases.
The back of the hand and the palm differ. The back has little sebum and dries easily; the palm is protected by a thick outer layer. The basic direction is to smooth the serum from the back of the hand to the fingertips and the nail contours.
Do not carry it into the night
On a day of gardening or long simmering, the dryness often returns in the evening. The moisture restored straight after the work is rinsed away again by supper and the washing up that follows. At the end of the day, wash and moisturise once more.
It is worth looking at the hands once more under a good light before bed. A day in the garden or at the stove leaves small marks that are easy to miss in the moment: a fine split beside a nail, a patch of roughness over a knuckle, a tightness when the fingers are stretched. Seen in the evening, they can be answered in the evening, with a little extra serum pressed into the place that needs it, rather than discovered the next morning as the gloves go back on.
On a night when the dryness is severe, layer a hand cream of your choice over the serum, or moisturise and then sleep in cotton gloves. Wait until the hands are quite dry before putting the gloves on. If redness or itching persists, consult a dermatologist.
What Soie keeps by the kitchen door
Soie's Enlight Hand Serum is a beauty serum designed only for the hands. It combines EGF and KGF (skin-conditioning ingredients) with five ceramides and peptides (moisturising ingredients), and its light texture leaves no stickiness, so you can go back to the kitchen and lift a lid straight away. The 30 mL bottle sits on a kitchen windowsill or by the back door. Wash away the soil and grease with Moist Fragrance Hand & Body Soap, which moisturises with every wash, and go straight on to the serum. Two minutes at the end of autumn's work.
Bulbs flower in spring. A stew deepens the longer it simmers. The hands are no different: each time the work ends with the habit of bringing them back, the difference shows a little more by the time the season turns.
