Ask SA: “What hand cream should I use at my keyboard?”

Smarter Reader Leigh asked us a question recently:

Leigh’s been using some one the delicious hand creams from Urban Rituelle (I adore their perfumes, especially Cotton Candy), but Leigh’s workmates complained about the strong scent.

The biggest issue with hand cream is that the wrong hand cream leaves your hands greasy and it wreaks havoc when you’re trying to use your keyboard and mouse. I’ve found that you should only use a small amount of hand cream to get the best of the moisturisation/anti-greasy worlds.

So Smarter Admins tried out varying hand creams and found some great alternatives.

Palmers Cocoa Butter is, as far as hand creams go, quite thick. It absorbs well and quicker than you would expect. You could also try Palmers olive butter or shea butter range. You can find them at supermarkets and discount retailers like K-Mart and Priceline.

 Vaso is such a classic line, how could we not feature it here? This is actually the hand cream I have on my desk at the moment and while it’s runny, it absorbs amazingly quickly. You could also try their Treatment Hand Cream range. You can find them at supermarkets and discount retailers like K-Mart and Priceline.

Aveeno’s Moisurising Lotions comes recommended by Smarter Reader Liz. She keeps a tube handy on her desk at work and she finds it especially helpful when processing the accounts at the end of the month. You can find Aveeno products at supermarkets and discount retailers like K-Mart and Priceline.

The great news is that you don’t have to spend a lot of money for a tube of hand cream that’s up for the task!

Don’t forget the great tip we published last week — Apply hand cream to prevent paper cuts.

What’s your favourite hand cream?

Apply hand cream to prevent paper cuts

Update: Lifehacker.com suggests a theory as to how hand cream can save us from those pesky paper cuts:

“The theory behind this is that the oils in the hand cream will protect your skin from getting cut. As such, you’re probably best off using a hand cream on the thick side with a good amount of oil (or better yet, beeswax). Then, when you’re about to rifle through lots of paper, just apply it and go about your business paper cut free. “

Sounds sensible – thanks Lifehacker!

We all know just how painful a paper cut can be. Or even a cardboard cut. Those things really hurt!

It’s amazing how something so small can cause so much pain, but this explanation from Wikipedia helps:

Paper cuts can be surprisingly painful as they can stimulate a large number of skin surface pain receptors in a very small area of the skin. Because the shallow cut does not bleed very much, the pain receptors are left open to the air, ensuring continued pain. This is exacerbated by irritation caused by the fibers in the paper itself, which may be coated in chemicals such as bleach. Additionally, most paper cuts occur in the fingers, which have a greater concentration of sensory receptors than the rest of the body.

When I was studying at TAFE, I was told by the lecturer that applying hand cream prevents paper cuts. How did I not know this? I’d been getting paper cuts for all these years, not knowing that there was an easy way to prevent them! I haven’t been able to find an explanation for it, but it must be something about the protective coating of the hand cream. I could only find one mention of hand cream preventing paper cuts online, so perhaps this trick isn’t widely known?

Now I put on hand cream multiple times a day, particularly when I’m about to do a bunch of filing or collating of documents. And it works!

Do you use hand cream to prevent paper cuts?