How to Keep Your Hands Looking Good: 6 Do’s and Don’ts

Hands are probably one of the first parts of the body where we start to notice signs of aging. There’s nothing wrong with aging and seeing your skin changes, but some people aren’t thrilled when they feel their hands don’t match their age.

There are external and internal causes in aging hands. External, which is more common, is sun exposure which causes pigmentation and destroys elastin in the skin, and the second external cause is washing your hands too often. Internal causes are mainly related to the loss of estrogen during menopause and genetic factors.

Now you might wonder what you can do to keep your hands looking younger and smooth. Here are some tips on how to do that.

What to Do

1. Use soap – before you use soap and apply it to your hands, make sure you run water over the hands. Rubbing your hands with soap and water helps wash out organisms off the hands and down the drain. If you’re wearing any jewelry don’t worry about that, because that needs to be washed, too. Soap is a substance that helps you get rid of bacteria from your hands when mixed with water. When you’re done with washing your hands remember to dry your hands thoroughly with a single-use towel.
2. Hand-care – remember to properly treat the surface of your hands, apart from washing them. There are some ways on how you can do that. You can do that by wearing gloves during cold, winter days or putting on sunscreen during warm, summer days. This will keep your hands safer and healthier.
3. Moisturize and exfoliate – keeping your hands hydrated is the key and the secret recipe to maintain them younger. Just apply some creams or lotions on the hands frequently during the day. Applying lotion on your hands will prevent chapped skin that can harbor bacteria. Luckily, there are lots of quality natural hand care products online so you can easily search for the one you’d like to use. If you wash them too often, apply creams more frequently. It’s best if you put on a cream before you go to bed. This simple and easy trick will help your hands retain the elasticity.
4. Treatments – to keep your hands younger you can have treatments that will help you remove the outer layer of the skin on your hands. These treatments can include laser resurfacing and dermabrasion.
5. Exfoliate – similar to the face routine, you can use a gentle exfoliator to get rid of dead skin cells and avoid having flaky and dull skin. You can even make an exfoliator on your own.
6. Nail polish – a simple and most effective way of drawing attention away from visible veins and age spots is putting on nice nail polish. Putting some color on your nails and hands will make them look younger and trendy.

What not to do

1. How water – when washing your hands, avoid using hot water because the high temperature clears the skin of its natural oils which keeps your hands moisturized. Instead, wash your hands with warm water. Using warm water helps wash away the loosened microorganisms.
2. No smoking – smoking can affect the way your hands look making them look grey, pale and dull.
3. Skin removal – avoid having skin removal surgery because this kind of surgery has more risks than benefits. With this kind of surgery, there’s a risk of poor healing, and you probably don’t want that.
4. Don’t touch the sink – keep in mind that your sink and faucet are contaminated so it’s wise to avoid touching them. If you accidentally touch the faucet or the sink, it’s advisable to start over again and wash your hands one more time.
5. Don’t splash water – avoid splashing water on your clothes when washing hands. The reason for that is because the rinse water from your hands can still carry bacteria and this way you’d end up with contaminated clothes and you might spread the contamination around you.
6. Hand sanitizer – avoid using hand sanitizer too often and too much. Hand sanitizing wipes and hand sanitizers are helpful and beneficial but they shouldn’t be your priority and the main way of cleaning your hands.

Summary

Frequently and properly washing your hands is one of the main and best ways to avoid catching illness and getting sick. Washing your hands helps you limit the transfer of viruses, bacteria, and other microbes. Apart from washing your hands, it’s also important to remember to take care of them and to keep them looking younger. We usually remember to take care of our face and apply anti-aging creams but we often forget parts of the body that reveals our age first – our hands. But remember that there’s no one way of taking care of your hands, the proper care depends on your needs and goals.