TRIAL TO WOMEN

Wairarapa Times-Age, 25 August 1938, Page 10

TRIAL TO WOMEN

RED, ROUGHENED HANDS. SOME TIMELY HINTS. Red, roughened hands are a trial to many women in winter. The cause of the trouble is often a poor circulation, but more often it is carelessness in the way the hands are treated. They are plunged repeatedly into very hot water, frequently into water to which soda has been added, or harsh soaps. They are incompletely dried, and then their owner goes out into the garden and hangs out clothes to dry, or does a little job in the garden without slipping on gloves. Is it surprising that the skin of the hands becomes coarse and red? When you wash-up, use a longhandled mop and beware of putting the hands in hot soda water, and use only .mild, oily soaps. Keep a fresh lemon rind and a jar of oameal near the sink and always after peeling fruit and vegetables rinse the hands in cold water and rub them all over with lemon rind, digging the nails well into it. Rinse again in cold water —do not use warm water and soap or the stains will be worse —dry them carefully and dust them with fine oatmeal. Make a fixed habit of treating them in this way and you will soon do it automatically. Always wear gloves for really dirty work, such as cleaning grates, brass, shoes, and so on, and rubber gloves for washing greasy dishes, if you can. In the early afternoon when you have finished your dirtiest work, spend four or five minutes in manicuring the nails, pushing back the cuticles and massaging the fingers with just a little olive oil, rubbing it well in and then exercising the fingers by stretching and bending them. Before going out, apply a quick-drying jelly or hand lotion. At bedtime apply lanolin and rub it well in; there is nothing so softening for work-roughened hands.