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An Easy 5-Step Hand Care Routine To Treat Crepey Skin & Dark Spots
A "hand care routine" may sound extra, but if you care about treating wrinkles, crepiness, dark spots, and dryness on the face and body, there's no reason why your hands can't join the party.
In fact, the skin on your hands is often the first area to show signs of aging (like the aforementioned wrinkles, crepiness, and lack of moisture), due to their increased environmental exposure and day-to-day physical wear.
Hands are also not typically treated with the same dedication as the face, which makes those concerns even more apparent over time. Hence, a hand care routine becomes significant.
Sure, you could always just use your everyday face products on your hands (skin is skin!), but on days you want to give your claws some additional TLC, consider keeping this five-step routine on hand (pun very much intended):
Wash
A clean canvas is necessary for all that follows—the rule applies not just for your face but for your paws too. And just like how harsh, sulfate-laden cleansers can strip your facial skin dry, the wrong hand soap can strip your skin of important barrier lipids, leaving it rough, itchy, and scaly.
Instead, look for a soap with gentle, hydrating surfactants that foam up without wrecking your skin barrier. Right now, I'm loving this Coconut Cream Hand & Body Wash from Beekman1802, but you can browse some more high-quality washes here.
Serum
Next up, the treatment step: This is the time to really address specific concerns, like fine lines, crepiness, hyperpigmentation, and so on.
If you can spare a few drops of your favorite face serum (vitamin C, niacinamide, et al.), go ahead and apply it right on your hands. But for those who can't bear the thought of wasting a drop (I hear you!), you can find plenty of specific hand serums meant to fill in microcracks, fade dark spots, and more.
At night, I'll personally use a retinol-infused product, like Necessaire's The Hand Retinol. If I'm pampering my paws during the day, I'll slather on an antioxidant-infused formula, like Tenoverten's Age-Defying Serum.
Cuticle oil
While the treatment dries down, pick up a cuticle oil to give your nail beds some attention. I love this practical move—cuticle oils have a similar consistency to serums, and it's a great use of time in between steps. Ripped, frayed cuticles can easily take away from hydrated, smooth hands, so it's important to send them the love they deserve!
JINSoon's Primrose + Honeysuckle Healing Cuticle Oil is my go-to (but here, you can find some more stellar options). I drop a tiny bit onto each nail, then rub it into the skin for a few seconds before switching hands.
Hand cream
Next, seal in all those skin-healthy nutrients with a quality hand cream. The best hand moisturizers contain a blend of humectant, emollient, and occlusive ingredients to ensure the formula attracts and holds water in the skin, supports the lipid layer of the skin, and seals in hydration (respectively). Personally, I haven't found one that I love more than mindbodygreen's postbiotic hand cream; it deeply moisturizes the skin yet sinks in effortlessly.
Some creams contain targeted actives, like retinol, glycolic acid, and such to combine it with the treatment step, which is fine—just make sure you don't load on any serums with those actives beforehand, lest you overwhelm your moisture barrier and irritate the delicate skin.
SPF
Last but not least: Protect your paws with SPF. Of course, you can simply apply your go-to SPF on your hands—or, for a more targeted approach, you can find a sunscreen-infused hand cream.
The benefit of the latter is that you can reapply it easily throughout the day, but I understand if you don't want to apply yet another oil-based cream on top of your moisturizer. I like to use the Suntouchable All Set for Sun SPF 45 spray from e.l.f. Skin, which is small enough to take with me on the go and makes application a breeze. But if you'd rather use an SPF-infused hand cream (like the Supergoop! HandScreen) to moisturize and protect in one fell swoop, please, go right ahead.
The takeaway
I'd be lying if I said I commit to this hand care routine every single day. I typically do the whole song and dance once a week, but at the very least, I will always moisturize the skin and protect it with SPF. Usually, that looks like slathering on hand cream and rubbing in the excess sunscreen I use on my face. It's OK if your routine is similarly haphazard, but know that your paws do so much for you day to day—so every now and then, why not give them the pampering they deserve?
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