This year, I’m not sure what it is but the cold winter weather is wrecking havoc on my skin– most specifically, my hands.  The past few weeks have been the worst. My hands are dry, cracked and Oh! the burning when washing them!

I finally put out a call for help on Facebook asking (begging) for help. I received tons of greats suggestions, and while I am still trying to find which suggested cream is my personal favorite, I thought I would share a few steps I’ve taken so far to repair these dry, cracked ,winter hands– including a DIY Homemade sugar scrub to exfoliate your hands, that you can make with stuff you have in your kitchen closet.

Step 1: Heal the cracked skin

My friend Niri suggested putting on Aquaphor and gloves before bed to help my hurting skin. I happened to have a small tube of Aquaphor in my house that I never used so I dug it up, put it on, and -WOW! She was right. A mini-miracle happened while I slept night. All the cracks in my hands were healed. I did this for 2 nights (and of course used cream like crazy during the day), my hands were still dry but cracks totally gone.

Once the cracks are gone, you are ready for step 2.

Step2: Exfoliate with a DIY homemade sugar scrub

(Caution: NEVER proceed to step 2 with out step 1… exfoliating cracked burning skin is not fun, in fact its torturing– don’t do it.. I speak from experience.)

Jennifer suggested I make a homemade exfoliant of mixing sugar and honey.  Exfoliating your hands is SO important. I use to have a jar of hand scrub at my sink and I’d exfoliate my hands every week. Somehow I got lazy and stopped. Could be part of the reason my hands are in such bad shape this winter.

Charmin from The Momiverse,  highly recommended coconut oil– which if you aren’t using on your skin yet, definitely do! Coconut Oil is amazing for your skin. Clearly, I wasn’t using it enough on my hands, but I already use it on my knees, elbows and occasionally, my face too. Coconut oil has a lot of skin benefits including anti-aging benefits– and hey! if you fancy the smell (and you will) to the point you want to eat it, go for it- its edible!

I decided to marry these two suggestions and made a hand scrub with sugar and coconut oil that is ah-mazing and  leaves your hands feeling silky smooth.

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DIY SUGAR SCRUB FOR DRY, CRACKED HANDS

Ingredients

• 2 teaspoons of coconut oil (make sure its extra virgin coconut oil!)
• 2 tablespoons of granulated sugar

*This mixture makes a small amount that will last about 3 scrubs. You can double or triple to make a fuller container.

Directions:

• Mix it all up.
• Using  1 teaspoon full of the mixture, scrub over the sink.
• Rinse
• Store the remainder of the mixture in a small tupperware container with a tight seal.

Your hands will feel silky smooth with a smooth light layer of oil  that will make the water bead up on your hands.

Follow up:

After you’re done exfoliating your hands with the scrub, be sure to moisturize with an amazing hand cream. There are so many great hand creams to choose from out there! I’m still finding the one that I love most.

Here are some of the suggestions I received from my Facebook poll:

– Udderly Smooth – This one was the #1 cream recommended to me and its also the most inexpensive which is awesome! (Thx Adrienne, Kylee, To-lan!)

– L’occitane (Thx JeanMarie and Stephanie!)

– Aveeno (Thx Coleen and Nina!)

– Neutrogena Norwegian formula (Thx Allison!)

– Spectro eczema cream (Thx Julia!)

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Do you have any tips on how  you keep your hands silky smooth during these cold winter months?