Be hand in glove for beauty and hygeine

Having beautiful hands is big business. They are the first part of the body to show your age and image-conscious women spend millions of pounds every year on products which promise to keep their hands looking young and wrinkle-free. As well as smooth skin, nail art is the new must-have, with many women desiring mini works of art at their fingertips and happily spending hours – and money! – in nail bars having their talons primped, primed and painted with all the latest fashionable designs.

Our hands are at the mercy of all sorts of everyday aggressors, from the weather to household detergents. We wear gloves for gardening so that we are not stung by nettles and scratched by brambles and we don’t think twice about pulling on our woolly mitts outdoors in winter to keep our hands safe from the cold and ravages of the harsh climate.

But many of us neglect our hands when we are indoors.  It’s not only cleaning agents that can be extremely harsh on both nails and hands; simply exposing them to water makes your nails swell and then shrink back as they dry, contributing to brittle nails.

As well as beauty we need to be aware of hand hygiene, considered to be one of the biggest areas in the field of infection control, notably in hospitals, restaurants and care homes.

Sanitized gel is widely used to combat germs. But making sure you have a regular supply of rubber gloves of various varieties means all you need to do is just slip on a pair to give yourself peace of mind that you are doing your best to keep those bacteria at bay and ensure your hands and nails stay looking lovely.

There are many types of gloves available in the marketplace, from heavy duty to lightweight and even close-clinging disposables which allow greater sensitivity and are ideal when preparing food, hand-washing delicate items of clothing or maybe dusting precious ornaments. Use the tougher gloves for heavy-duty cleaning: keep a pair in the bathroom and at least a couple of pairs in the kitchen for different tasks.

As well as keeping your hands hygienic, another major bonus of using rubber gloves is that you never have to take off your precious rings to do your housework. We all know that washing up and other tasks can scratch and chip precious stones, loosen them from their settings or even result in them falling out and so many of us take our rings off beforehand. But one of the easiest ways to lose a ring is to remove it to do the chores and then forget where you have left it only to have it vanish forever. Investing in some rubber gloves not only saves your hands – it saves your jewellery too!

Here are a few more simple tips to help keep your hands looking their best:

• Moisturise often with hand cream – keep bottles of it handy in the bathroom, kitchen and bedroom
• Use sunscreen lotion on hands to guard against ageing sun damage.
• Pat your hands dry frequently to avoid fungal infections.
• Use special treatments such as a warm oil bath and herbal therapies to keep your hands soft.
• Don’t use acetone polish removers as they dry out nails.
• Dip your fingertips in lukewarm olive oil for stronger nails.
• Do not remove cuticles – they are there to protect your nails from infection.
• Wear gloves at all times while doing gardening, washing dishes or any grubby chores to protect your hands from dust, pollution and chemical reactions.