Monday 20 April 2020

More Handwashing Thoughts

I had another thought about my handwashing "issues", and how to best keep my hands from hating me.

I realized that for a lot of the handwashing I'm doing I'm actually using dish soap.  See, I have a hand pump of dish soap next to my kitchen sink and it's super convenient for washing my hands when I first come in the door, so I've been doing that.  And, it's like, 20 steps more convenient than going to the bathroom to use "real" soap the rest of the time too, so.... yeah, dish soap. 

And then the other day as I was washing my hands in the bathroom I thought "you know... this soap *feels* different" and I realized that yeah, it probably actually is.

I'm no soap expert (I only play one on tv!) but I bet there are completely different ingredients (I want to say "surfactants"???) in dish soap than hand/body soap and that dish soap is somehow harder (for grease?) and so has maybe been even meaner to my poor hands than need be.

I've put some moisturizer next to my sinks as a starting point, but they're still looking really... rough.  So I'm trying to order some hand soap pump stuff for my kitchen sink to hopefully keep my hands clean but less beaten up.

Because along with the hangnail situation, they're also looking suddenly really really aged.  I've always been conscious of my hands and the skin on them and I've always tried to sunscreen them (when I remember, whoops!) and I know they're aging, just like the rest of me and the rest of my skin but this increased washing (both length/amount and frequency) really seems to be making the skin not so happy.

So I'm hoping that if I start using "non dish" soap and keep up with my moisturizing (and moisturizing from the inside too, thanks water!) that my hands will be clean and also not too terribly upset with me.

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