Much of the damage that wet work does to the hands happens, we think, not while they are in the water but in the few minutes after the tap closes. As water evaporates from a wet hand, the moisture held in the outer layer of the skin leaves with it. Once detergent has rinsed away the sebum film, the skin has little left to hold that moisture back.
Whether at the kitchen sink or the bathroom basin, wet work itself is hard to reduce. The short interval between closing the tap and starting the next task, though, is something anyone can design. This article concentrates on those three minutes and sets out hand care for the moments right after wet work.
The first minute: how the hands are dried
Wiping wet hands on an apron or a sleeve is the most common way of drying them and the hardest on the skin. Cloth dragged across a surface softened by water abrades it, and leaves droplets half-dried in place. Those droplets take the surrounding moisture with them as they evaporate.
Three steps. Press a clean towel or paper towel to the hands and let it absorb the water. Press between the fingers and around the nails too. Leave no droplets. That alone changes what the next two minutes can do. In the kitchen, keep one cloth solely for drying the hands; in the bathroom, use one that has recently been laundered. Drying the hands on a towel that is still damp is much the same as wetting them again.
The right pressure is the towel sinking to the shape of the hand. Press the back, press the palm, then fold the cloth around each finger in turn and close the hand lightly. It takes about ten seconds, and an hour later the difference between a hand that was rubbed dry and one that was pressed dry can be felt.
The second minute: moisturise as soon as the hands are dry
Freshly dried hands look dry on the surface, but the outer layer is still swollen with water. This is the moment most suited to giving moisture. Take one or two pearl-sized drops of serum on the back of the hand, bring the backs of the hands together to spread it, and work it in between the fingers and around the nails.
Applying straight after wet work only works if the texture leaves no stickiness, because the next thing the hands will do is wash a chopping board, handle vegetables or grip the handle of a pan. Unless the hands can return to work immediately, the three-minute routine never becomes a habit. Lightness enough to reapply after every wash is exactly what hands that do a great deal of wet work need.
For anyone whose hands are in water many times a day, it is more reliable to make drying and moisturising a single movement than to count applications. Wash, dry, apply: three steps that form one gesture.
The third minute: what not to touch with wet hands
The last of the three minutes is about what not to do. There are a few things wet or freshly moisturised hands tend to do without thinking.
- Turning the hot tap on again. If the task can be done in lukewarm water, do not raise the temperature.
- Opening the refrigerator or stepping out into cold air while the hands are still wet. In a winter kitchen, cold air on wet hands is enough to dry them further.
- Pulling on rubber gloves over wet hands. The moisture inside has nowhere to go, and the inside of the glove becomes a long stretch of wet work in itself.
The third is usually done with good intentions. Gloves go on only when the hands are completely dry. If the gloves come off midway through a task, dry the hands, check that they are dry, and only then put the gloves back on.
Beyond what not to touch, there is the matter of leaving the hands wet while something else happens. The phone rings, a child calls, a pan boils over. In a kitchen, the next thing tends to begin before the hands are dry. For such days, a second cloth hung along the usual route through the room shortens the time the hands spend wet.
Supporting the three minutes with placement
Whether this routine lasts depends less on willpower than on where things are kept. Put paper towels and the 30 mL bottle of serum within reach of the tap: the end of the spice shelf in the kitchen, next to the toothbrush in the bathroom. When they are in view, the routine is no longer something to be remembered but something done because it is seen.
In a life with a great deal of wet work, the hands get wet and dry again dozens of times a day. The three minutes need not be kept perfectly every time. Some days only the drying changes. Applying serum after every third wash is still something. Anything above nothing, the hands respond to. The whole approach of washing, moisturising and protecting is on our hand care page.
How Soie sees it
One of the reasons Soie chose a serum as the form for its hand product lies in these three minutes: to moisturise hands fresh from wet work without leaving stickiness, so that they can return at once to what they were doing. Enlight Hand Serum contains five ceramides and peptides (moisturising ingredients) and was designed on the assumption that it would be reapplied after every wash. Some people keep one bottle by the kitchen sink and another in the bathroom.
Three minutes after the tap closes. Dry by pressing, moisturise once dry, touch nothing while wet. A great deal of roughness in the hands turns on how this brief interval is spent.
