Where are your hands while you are in the bath? Usually under the water. Sink to the shoulders and the hands sink too; readers hold their book, and anyone who has brought a phone has their fingers resting on the screen. Fifteen minutes, sometimes thirty. The face stays above the water while the hands remain below it the whole time.
For the hands, this is a long stretch of wet work, at a higher temperature and for longer than anything at the kitchen sink. Bathing loosens the body, and at the same time it quietly drains moisture from the hands. This article follows the hands from the moment they enter the bathroom to the minutes after they leave it, and considers what hand care around bathing might look like.
What hot water and a long soak take from the hands
The back of the hand has few sebaceous glands, and the film of sebum that holds water in the outer layer of the skin is thin to begin with. Hot water lifts that sebum away and easily breaks the moisture barrier. The reason lukewarm water is recommended for washing the hands applies just as much to the bath.
The second factor is swelling. Fingertips that have been in water for a long time turn white and wrinkled: the outer layer has taken up water and expanded. Once out of the bathroom, that water evaporates quickly and carries the skin's own moisture with it. Hands feel dry after a bath because of this swell-and-shrink cycle. The nails respond in the same way; staying wet for long periods is associated with brittle nails.
Many people have noticed that their hands feel dry after a bath, but few trace the cause back to the bath itself. Because the dryness arrives after leaving the bathroom, the heating or the bedding tends to get the blame. The starting point, though, is the time the hands spent under the water.
Three small adjustments in the bath
There is no need to shorten the bath itself. The hands simply need to spend a little less time in the water.
- Rest the hands outside the water. Arms laid along the rim of the bath keep the shoulders warm while the hands sit in dry air.
- Lower the temperature slightly. Water that is too hot strips sebum from the whole body, not only the hands. Warm water for longer is the kinder order of things.
- Notice the hands while washing the body. The hand that rinses again and again under hot water is the most-washed part of the body during a bath. Choose a soap that is not harshly cleansing, and rinse thoroughly.
It is easy to forget that the soap used on the body is also on the hands. If the same soap washes both, there is a reason to choose it from the hands' point of view: does it leave moisture behind with every wash?
After the bathroom: the hands at the same moment as the face
Most people have a routine for the face after bathing. Pat dry, lotion, serum. The hands are another matter. The hair gets dried, nightclothes go on, and an hour passes with the hands still untouched.
After a bath the outer layer of the hands is swollen and the surface sebum has been rinsed away. This is the moment at which moisture is most readily received, and also the moment at which it is most quickly lost. When the face gets its lotion, let the same hands smooth serum over their own backs. Aligning the hands with the face makes the step impossible to forget.
Drying deserves a word too. After a bath, press the towel to the hands rather than rubbing, and leave no droplets. Water-swollen fingertips are vulnerable to friction, and rubbing roughens the surface. Once dry, moisturise within a few minutes: the bottle on the basin comes before the hairdryer.
Placing post-bath care within the day
For anyone who washes their hands many times a day, the bath is usually the last wash of the day. Make moisturising at this point a fixed habit, and evening hand care completes itself. In drier seasons the sequence can continue: cream over the serum, and cotton gloves if needed.
In a household, a single bottle of serum left on the basin can be used by whoever passes after their bath. Children, men, anyone, whatever the condition of their skin, if the formula is gentle enough; a shared bottle becomes part of the room quite naturally. If the product does not agree with the skin, stop using it.
There is also something to be said for the timing on its own terms. The minutes after a bath are among the few in the day when nothing is being asked of the hands: no keyboard, no tap, no bag handle. A serum worked in now has time to settle before the hands are used again, and the scent that rises with the warmth of the skin belongs to the evening rather than to the working day.
Bathing happens every day, which is why small changes, where the hands rest in the water, the few minutes after leaving the bathroom, add up over a year. The full picture of washing, moisturising and protecting is set out on our hand care page.
How Soie sees it
Soie's Moist Fragrance Hand & Body Soap is a soap that washes hands and body from a single bottle and is formulated to moisturise with every wash. Used all over in the bath, it brings the same moisture to the hands, the part of the body that is washed most during bathing. Out of the bathroom, one or two pearl-sized drops of Enlight Hand Serum go from the backs of the hands to the fingertips and the nail contours. It leaves no stickiness, so the hair can be dried and the bedding touched straight away.
Rest the hands outside the water. After the bath, moisturise the hands together with the face. Add these two steps to the bathing routine and the hands feel a little different in the morning.
