Whenever people ask if I have sensitive skin, it always gives me pause. Do I say yes if my facial skin can tolerate quite a lot but the skin on some other parts of my body can’t?

You see, I don’t have sensitive skin anywhere else on my body except for my hands. Its something I noticed and paid attention to in the last few years and I’ve traced my “allergy/sensitivity” to:-

• harsh detergents – no washing up for me without gloves
• certain chemicals – yet unknown which but usually in body washes, shampoos or face cleansing gels
• certain organic products – depending on concentration of ingredients
• prolonged contact with paper – work hazard

What happens in my case is nothing very serious from a health standpoint. However, its terribly serious from a aesthetics and comfort standpoint.

For me, if I come into contact with any of the above, within 2 days max (except for paper), the skin on my hands start to harden, dry out and peel. And its serious chronic continuous peeling. As long as I’m exposed to the item, it will continue. its so bad my hands look like that of a burn victim. And it does not recover as quickly even after I stop contact with the offending product.

I recently had a very bad bout – I have not yet been able to trace it to the particular product – where I had one of the worst ever reactions. I really should have taken a picture but I was spending too much time trying to cure it so all you have is a picture of my finger as shown above. Multiply that by 5 and include the palm and you get the general idea. Better this way. I don’t spoil your breakfast/lunch ;)

Using hand creams don’t help in my case. They alleviate the discomfort for a short while but then it comes back. That leads me to believe that many hand creams out there only work on the surface. They do not help “cure” a dry skin problem, no matter what they claim. Didn’t stop me however, and I did find a combination that helped me cure my problem! I’ve shared below some of those I tried and what eventually helped me.

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