For some people, the number of times they wash their hands is not a choice but a requirement of the job. Before and after touching a patient on a ward, between each shampoo and each chemical service at the salon, after wiping each child's hands at nursery, between ingredients in a kitchen. Dozens of washes and sanitisings a day are simply part of the work.
These are also the hands that ordinary advice fails to reach. Wash less often is not an option. Wear gloves for wet work is difficult when touching with bare hands is the work itself. What can be done has to be worked out on the assumption that the washing will not decrease.
This article is for hands that live with frequent washing: how to wash, when sanitiser is the gentler choice, and what to do during a shift, on a break, and after it.
What washing that cannot be reduced takes from the hands
Frequent washing removes sebum along with dirt and easily breaks down the film that keeps water in the stratum corneum. The loss from a single wash is small, but at dozens of washes a day the next one arrives before the last has been made good. The backs of the hands, with little sebum and thin skin, are where this depletion shows first.
Water is not the only factor. Salon chemicals, kitchen detergents, alcohol sanitiser. Long spells with wet hands and handling detergents or other chemicals without gloves are common causes not only of rough skin but of brittle nails.
In childcare and in care work there is a further difficulty: the next person has to be touched almost as soon as the hands are washed, so there is no moment in which to moisturise at all. Where there is no time to apply anything, the manner of washing and the placement of what is used have to be put right first. That is why this article takes them in that order.
When the hands are rough, the work itself is affected. If touching is the job, the condition of the hands is the condition of the tools.
What the manner of washing can change
If the number of washes is fixed, change the wash itself. Four points matter.
- Use lukewarm water, not hot. Hot water strips sebum and breaks the moisture barrier.
- Choose a gentle soap that is not overly strong, within whatever the workplace specifies.
- Rinse thoroughly, between the fingers and up to the wrists; soap left on the skin causes irritation.
- Dry without rubbing: press with a paper towel and leave no droplets behind.
Where there is a choice, look again at the soap itself. A soap formulated to moisturise with every wash holds off the tight feeling that follows washing. The dispenser on the ward or in the salon may be beyond anyone's control, but the bottle in the staff room and the one at home are a personal decision.
Each of these alters a single wash by a few seconds. Repeated dozens of times a day, the difference accumulates. For hands that are washed constantly, the manner of washing is the care.
Sanitiser or soap
When there is no visible dirt, using a hand sanitiser that contains moisturising ingredients is considered less likely to cause chapping than repeated washing with soap and running water, because frequent washing strips sebum. Workplace hygiene procedures come first; where they leave room to choose, this is the principle to lean on.
For those whose skin is irritated by alcohol, alcohol-free sanitisers are an option. In either case, pair every sanitising with a second movement: once the hands are dry, moisturise.
The minutes after sanitising are when the hands dry out most readily. When they are dry, take a single pearl-sized drop of hand serum and smooth it over the backs of the hands, between the fingers and around the nails. Something that leaves no stickiness will not interfere with the next task.
A small bottle on shift, and the break and the end of the day
Care during a shift depends entirely on whether it can sit in the path of the work. A uniform pocket, a locker, the shelf beside the shampoo basin. Keep a bottle of around 30 mL within three steps of wherever the hands are washed. The condition is lightness: it must be possible to touch instruments, a keyboard or a client's hair immediately afterwards.
The break is the longest stretch of the day in which moisture stays on the hands. Before it begins, wash, then work the serum carefully between the fingers and around the nails. Over a meal or a short rest, the hands are at last left unwashed, and the serum has time to settle.
The bath after work is also the one wash of the day that can be done slowly. Water that is not too hot, a gentle soap, the residue of chemicals and sanitiser rinsed away, the hands pressed dry rather than rubbed. The unhurried wash that the shift never allowed is recovered here.
After the shift comes the time to make good the day's losses. Wash on arriving home, smooth in the serum slowly, and on very dry evenings layer a cream over it. When the hands are badly chapped, moisturising before bed and sleeping in cotton gloves is one approach. Where chemicals are handled, use gloves to the extent the workplace allows. If redness, itching or any other symptom persists, consult a dermatologist.
Soie's hand beauty, for these hands too
Soie's Moist Fragrance Hand & Body Soap is formulated to moisturise with every wash, which makes it suited to people who wash their hands often. Enlight Hand Serum is a beauty serum designed only for the hands, combining EGF and KGF (skin-conditioning ingredients) with five ceramides and peptides (moisturising ingredients); it leaves no stickiness, so it can be used many times during a shift without getting in the way.
Hands that work hardest are the hands that most need care and have the least time for it. Change the way each wash is done, add a drop after sanitising, and give the break and the end of the day a few minutes. That is a realistic sequence for keeping hands that touch for a living. Our hand beauty Q&A also covers washing and sanitising.
