Dry hands: These tips from Ökotest are guaranteed to help

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Frequent hand washing
Dry and cracked hands? This will make your skin supple again

Frequent hand washing destroys the skin’s natural protective acid mantle

© AndreiDavid / Getty Images

03/11/2022, 11:05 am

2 min reading time

Washing and disinfecting your hands regularly is more important than ever in times of the corona crisis, but it also has consequences: the skin becomes dry and cracked. It is all the more important to take care of your hands regularly. We’ll show you how.

It is actually the most normal thing in the world to wash your hands regularly and thoroughly: Due to the rapid spread of the Covid-19 virus, however, it is recommended to soap your skin for at least 20 seconds and as often as possible – this is the only way to be effective protect against infectious diseases. To increase protection, you can also disinfect your hands regularly. Both subjects the skin to a severe stress test. Because the soap and alcohol-based disinfectants attack your natural protective acid mantle, making it brittle and cracked. Not only does this look unsightly, it can also cause your hands to burn or itch. But there is good news: With the right care, you can get painful skin problems under control again. You can find out which hand creams help here.

The right hand cream: you should pay attention to this

According to Prof. Christian Raulin, a dermatologist from Karlsruhe, you should never do without washing and disinfecting your hands regularly. Instead, you should supplement your skin care with an ointment that is as greasy as possible and yet absorbs well. His rule of thumb for correct application is: “Disinfect once, apply lotion five times”. The question here, however, is which one hand cream is recommended? Because loud Eco test Many over-the-counter products contain questionable ingredients such as mineral oil-based fats and waxes, synthetic polymers or the fragrance Lilial – which is suspected of being reproductively harmful. For this reason, 50 hand creams were tested. It was primarily organic cosmetic products that scored “very good”:

Öko-Test gives tips for buying a hand cream

There is a good reason why natural cosmetics are often the better choice – also for hand creams: According to the Öko-Test, manufacturers are not allowed to use problematic substances such as PEG, paraffins and silicone in order to get the corresponding certificate. This not only benefits your dry hands, but also your health. When buying, make sure that the hand cream:

  • no dangerous ingredients such as “butylphenyl methylpropional” (i.e. the fragrance Lilial),
  • no mineral oil-based fats and waxes (including Paraffinum liquidum or Cera Microcristallina) and
  • does not contain any synthetic polymers such as acrylate and other co- and cross-polymers, (sodium) carbomer, (sodium) polyacrylamide or polyquaternium-10.

How to prevent dry hands

You can take preventive measures to prevent your hands from getting dry in the first place. This includes:

  1. Always use a pH neutral or mild soapwhen you wash your hands
  2. It is better to wash your hands under lukewarm, not so hot water
  3. Wear when washing dishes and cleaning rubber gloves
  4. Rub your damp hands with it Organic Coconut Oil or Organic Olive Oil in to care for the skin
  5. Apply a lot of cream to your hands before bed and wear overnight cotton gloves

As a result, your skin remains supple at all times and is less likely to tear if you have to wash or disinfect your hands more often.

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