Work Need Not Spoil Your Hands

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23121, 20 August 1938, Page 6 (Supplement)

Work Need Not Spoil Your Hands

If You Treat Them Kindly "PED, roughened hands are a trial to many women in winter. The cause of the trouble is. often a poor circulation, but more often it is carelessness in the way the hands arc treated. They are plunged repeatedly into very hot water, frequently into water to which soda has been added, or harsh soaps. Thc.v arc incompletely dried, and then their owner* goes out into the garden and hangs oiit clothes to dry. or does a little job in the garden without slipping on gloves. Is it surprising that the skin of the hands becomes coarse and red? , When you wash-up, use a longhandled mop and beware of putting the hands in hot soda water, and use only mild, oily soaps. Keep a fresh lemon rind and a jar of lino oatmeal near the sink and always after peeling fruit and vegetables rinse the hands in cold water and rub them all over with lemon rind, digging the nails well into it. Rinse again in cold water —do not vise warm water and soap or the stains will ho worse—dry them carefully and dust them with fine oatmeal. Make a fixed habit of treating them in this way and vou will soon do it automatically. Always wear gloves for really dirty work, such as cleaning grates, brass, shoes, and so on, and rubber gloves for washing greasy dishes, if you can. In the early afternoon when you have finished your dirtiest work, spend four or five minutes in manicuring the nails, pushing back the cuticles and massaging the fingers with just a little olive oil, rubbing it well in and then exercising the lingers by stretching and bending them. Before going out, apply a quick-drying jelly or hand lotion. At bedtime apply lanolin and rub it well in; there is nothing so softening lor work-roughened hands.