The Impervious Case For Men's Hand Cream
Meet our specially formulated Active Relief Hand Cream, the best chance you have if you don’t want rocks for paws. Image: Brian So
There’ll be no clever lead this time, dear reader.
No quips, no pop culture references, none of it.
Think of this post as more of a public service announcement, only from a private men’s grooming brand.
For the next five minutes, you’ll learn why hand cream is good for you.
Not that calluses aren’t cool. We all know calluses are the penultimate mark of labourers and those of us who endure. Men who toil and cut ore in mines, champion bodybuilders, carpenters, and mechanics who make miracles out of write-offs by hammering and welding iron — these are candidates for hand cream use. Where there’s hard work to be done, there will be men with tough hands. But calluses and dry hands don’t always cross paths.
For one, some calluses can turn into lesions, the kinds that get infected.
And sometimes, dry hands get itchy and flaky. Then they start to snow dead skin on things, and there’s enough snow outside. Which brings up winter and its war on skin.
You, reader, could have dry hands.
And unless you want to start fires with them, you’ll want a good cream.
Hand Cream’s Manlier Than You’d Think
Using hand cream’s as manly as punching out the guy who groped your wife. Hand cream use is manlier than carrying a comb in your pocket. And we have it on good authority that hand cream’s even manlier than shave cream, and not because shaving isn’t manly, but because faces don’t handle boulders and operate jackhammers.
Calluses aren’t necessarily bad in and of themselves, but dry skin can turn into cuts and lesions if your’re not on top of things. So if your hands get dry as hell, don’t cut corners.
Take care of them like they take care of you.
Hand Washing: Everyone’s Doing It
Winter’s the worst for your skin, but many of you knew that. Still, some of you’ll need a refresher on this: There’s little humidity in the air when it’s cold, and cold air does a hell of a job wicking moisture from your skin. Add to that more moisture-wickers like indoor heating and you get a lot of men with dry hands — the only two things that see more winter than your head.
And if that weren’t enough, we’re in the middle of a pandemic and hand washing’s as de rigueur as saying “hello” and even breathing itself.
Guess what else dries hands? Constant moisture, which presides at the opposite end of the healthy skin spectrum. That’s why constant hand washing’s bad for your hands, and as if this whole thing couldn’t get harder to hack, washing with hot water’s a fast ticket to dry hands; Hot water feels nice, yes, but it strips skin of moisture with no mercy.
What’s In It For You
A good hand cream — like the one we launched last year as part of our new hand care line — should have good ingredients, chief of which are essential oils. Ours has stuff with names gladiators would’ve coveted, like Cocos Nucifera (or Coconut Oil) and Persea Gratissima (Avocado Oil), both of which moisturize skin like bosses. We even tossed in some Globolus Leaf Oil (the intimidating way of saying “Eucalyptus Oil"), which acts a great anti-inflammatory and anti-bacterial helper.