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Last Updated: Jul 2nd, 2008 - 21:15:22 |
(ARA) – Have you spent the majority of the winter with your hands bandaged up because they are cracked and the skin is splitting? If not, consider yourself lucky.
Results of the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) suggest that at least 81 million Americans experience dry, itchy or scaly skin during the winter months due to blasts of colder, dryer air, winter sun exposure and over-heated homes and offices. For most of us, relief is in sight. Moisture will return to the air come spring.
But for those who work with their hands -- plumbers, construction workers, delivery drivers, postal carriers, and even do-it-yourselfers -- cracked fingers and splitting thumbs are a problem that exists throughout the year.
“Your skin is 90 something percent water and in order to heal, there need to be live cells reproducing, and in order to reproduce they need to be hydrated. The problem with most hand lotions is that they contain oils. While they make your skin feel good and soft, they will prevent hydration because they repel water,” says Tara O’Keeffe, inventor of O’Keeffe’s Working Hands Hand crème, a product she developed after graduating from pharmacy school to help her rancher father who was plagued by severe splits and cracks on the skin of his hands and feet.
“Dad’s skin was so dry it cracked and bled, and it hurt to shake hands,” remembers O’Keeffe. “But within a week of starting to use the formulation I had developed, his bleeding hands were cured.”
O’Keefe’s Working Hands Crème contains a combination of primarily water and glycerin that hydrates the skin, stimulates its growth and traps moisture in the top layers of the skin without being oily. After Bill O’Keeffe started telling others about his success with the cream, word quickly spread, and so did demand. What started 12 years ago as a kitchen-counter project has evolved into an expanding business that has produced and shipped several million jars from their facility in Sisters, Ore.
Initially, O’Keeffe’s Working Hands was sold primarily in the cosmetics aisle at such stores as Walgreens, but has recently started showing up at home improvement stores like Lowe’s, as well as farm stores like Tractor Supply. It’s also sold online through the company Web site: www.okeeffescompany.com.
In addition to using Working Hands daily, here are some other steps the Johns Hopkins Medical Institution recommends you take to keep your skin moisturized, particularly if you work with your hands:
* Use a humidifier at home and in the office;
* Take quick warm showers, and slather on the moisturizer while skin is still damp to keep water in the upper layers of skin and decrease dryness and itching;
* Use hand soap that contains moisturizing ingredients or an alcohol-free hand sanitizer;
* Promote healthy skin with a diet of strawberries, blueberries, blackberries and plums, and foods with essential fatty acids, such as salmon, walnuts and canola oil. Drink water and green tea in sufficient quantities to hydrate body cells and increase anti-inflammatory chemistry.
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