I have used Avon Silicone Glove with reasonable success, but the best thing I’ve found is a product sold by an Australian company called Cotton On Body called Botanicals Balance Hand Cream. I had terrible cracked hands due to working as a cook and constantly hand washing and also dish washing, with cracks so deep that some bled. The Botanicals sorted them in a few days and it smells nice (I am sensitive to scents).

If you can’t get it online and would like to try it, PM me :-)

I use O'Keeffe's Working Hands and Healthy Feet twice a day, every day of the year.

DH has the same issue and swears by Neutrogena Hand Cream.

I believe many of the well known brands work if you apply them daily.

Aquaphor is another good one.

I agree. It's the keeping up with that is most important. I use Vaseline Intensive Care lotion and we also have a prescription for Lac-Hydran.

I have had dry skin forever, but it of course is especially bad in the winter. I carry a small purse size lotion to reapply after washing my hands.

For your severe situation, I would go to a dermatologist get a prescription and use until you can change over to a less harsh over the counter.

Whole house humidifiers also work.

I use O'Keeffe's at night with cotton gloves. I just bought a new pair at Meijer in the spa isle.

I've used all sorts of products over the years - from the cheap and greasy Vaseline to all sorts of hand lotions to the expensive creams advertised for dry skin. Sometimes for reasons I can't explain, a product that had felt good and worked effectively for a long time would stop feeling good. It can be maddening.

The product I'm using most often now is Aveeno Skin Relief Cream.

I think using a medium to greasy product and wearing cotton gloves overnight is a good idea.

I use Udder Cream, sold at the farm store, that farmers use on cows....the real stuff. Although the label says "not intended for human use", it has worked fine for me. (And I've not started "mooing" yet. LOL)

I'm another O'Keefe's fan. Both my feet and hands crack (make that - USED to crack) open and bleed. I always carried Liquid Skin in my purse to seal the cracks on my hands so I didn't bleed all over my work. Just discovered O'Keefe's last year and I'm SO glad I did. A tub of Working Hands at work and one at home. Healthy Feet on my bedside table. My feet are worse in the summer, but my hands are bad all through the seasons. I seldom wear any shoe except sandals. I have a microplane grater to use on my feet and during warm months I rub Healthy Feet on before bed and wear lightweight socks to sleep in. Once my feet healed, I have not had any more cracks appear. I bought a box full of cotton gloves and I was using Working Hands before bed and wearing the gloves. One evening I couldn't find the tub of Working Hands (with 7 cats something is always missing), so I used Healthy Feet instead. I used it for a couple of weeks and found that my hands had never been softer! So now I just use Healthy Feet on both hands and feet. It's not a lotion and you don't use very much. It feels waxy while you're putting it on, but rub it all in and there's no greasy feeling (which I hate). DH likes to hold my hand and he has commented several times about how soft my hands are.

My wife prefers Gold Bond. After using it for a few weeks she thought someone else's hands were in the shower with her.

A lot of dermatologists recommend plain Vaseline which does work quite well but I prefer:

To use with gloves at bedtime...

either Mary Kay Extra Emollient Night Cream massaged into the skin with a bit of water

or Creamy Petroleum Jelly from Dollar Tree (gloves at bedtime, too.)

The Mary Kay night cream is like a waxy petroleum jelly. Smells nice and works fantastic. Significantly better than the O'Keefe's products (or anything else I have tried), IME. The Mary Kay stuff is the Big Gun for when your hands have been terribly abused. It is also a great lip balm for dried/ cracked lips as well as for when you have a horrible cold/ running nose & get raw skin under your nose. Not as messy as plain Vaseline, smells betters and also works better than Vaseline, IMO.

I love the Dollar Tree Creamy Petroleum Jelly. Cheap/ smells great, too. Not as messy; it's what I call the Little Gun. I used it a lot when the psoriasis on my palms was really bad. The psoriasis is mostly gone now (went away when I cut most of the gluten from my diet.)

One year my hands were dried, cracked and bleeding like never before. I tried everything and nothing helped. Then I tried O'Keefe's not expecting much and was pleasantly surprised. Love that stuff. You only use a tiny amount , it isn't "greasy" and it lasts a very long time.

I have used both O'Keefe's and Gold Bond pedi smooth. The Gold Bond works better. It has a waterproof barrier, too.

O'Keefe's fan. Bed Bath & Beyond carries it. I use the store coupon and buy several.

I hadn't heard of O'Keefes, I'll give it a try. In the past I used Norwegian Formula (is that by Neutrogena? It's probably just made of petroleum jelly.) at night with gloves, and during the day with a finger cot. They are kind of like a condom lol so I wear them only around the house and in the car, but I can roll it off and back on easily. I usually have one finger that's worse than the others, so the cots work best for daytime.

Over the years I have found that a combination of things work best for me. I do not know if it is the way manufactures change products or what but what works one year will not work the next. One thing that might help is removing the dried skin either by using the above suggested pedi smooth or similar stuff. It is the dried surface skin that normally cracks first leading to deeper cracks. What worked last year was Vicks the type you use when you have a cold. Other than my lips I have not had the problem, yet, this year.

For years and years I've used Vaseline on my hands in the afternoon or evening during colder, dry months. I slather it on, sit in front of the tube, and rub my hands from time to time for about half an hour or so, hoping the phone won't ring if hubby isn't home. I then wipe it off with kleenex and am good to go. The dermo I saw all those years ago told me to stay away from any lotions or creams, as it would make the problem worse. I believe I developed this condition by having my hands in water too much. In other words, too much housework!

Buy O'Keefes online, at the hardware store and now I see it at the drug store. And next time I buy it I want to try the O'Keefes in the tube.

I know a lot of people who use a good goats milk cream. I have a small jar I use on my elbows when they start feeling scaly and it works almost overnight. Seems like the fewer ingredients in anything, the better the product when it comes to healing.

O'keefes left a weird residue which I didn't care for. I don't mind greasy or thick even heavy creams but I did not like that residue...even on my feet. My go tos are usually aquafor, cerave, nivea.

I use the Neutrogena hand cream I have a link for below. I have used all sorts of others, including that Working Hand stuff (which did nothing at all). This really makes the cracks heal up like nothing else! Be sure and buy the Fragrance Free one.
This is the best!

Gold Bond for me! It works.

Neutrogena all the way. It worked for my mom (who had the driest skin on the planet) and it works for me.

I meant to say, and forgot....sometimes if your fingers are really cracked you just need to apply some Polysporin and put on gloves before bed. A couple of times this happened to me and it healed better. Plus try to avoid chemicals or harsh work with your hands for a few days.

We use First Aid Beauty Ulta Repair Cream. After trying most of those mentioned above we have found this works best for us. Good luck as dry cracked fingers really are painful.

Thankful to have almost entirely avoided such problems.

Following a spot of diarrhea recently, aided somewhat and dare I judge somewhat abetted by a catheter that decided to block, that day ... I dug into old step-aunt's tub of Vaseline, used rarely since her death, about 17 years ago. Hopefully without making a complete ass of myself, may I say that it seemed to help some.

Living in a rather cold area, nestled near four of the Great Lakes and using mainly an oil-fired furnace for heating, I've found that placing several small, mainly metal containers filled with water beside some registers helps somewhat in alleviating the dry air: it's rather surprising how often they need to be refilled.

Super Jester Erin ...

how about keeping a small towel or washcloth, or dinner napkin handy for times when you're in the midst of treatment, while also occupied with TV, when hubby's not handy?

Good wishes, all, for keeping your humour drier than your hands (without being a heel about it).

o j

I use a cream called "udderly smooth" and it works great.

DH works outside in cold, wet weather and finds that the Working Hands does the best job of keeping his hands healed up. He has to use it twice a day, every day to have it keep his hands from cracking, but it works.

One thing that might help is removing the dried skin either by using the
above suggested pedi smooth or similar stuff. It is the dried surface
skin that normally cracks first leading to deeper cracks.

The O'Keeffe's Healthy Feet label recommends using on exfoliated skin to speed recovery.

I mix up one vitamin a capsule and one vitamin e capsule and put that on and let it soak in. If I use any of the above-mentioned creams it causes my skin to react poorly. Quite often I'll even get a cold sore there where I put it on. The vitamin e and a together just make my skin soften up. No cold sore.

I use plain Vaseline. After I shower, I put some on my heels and slip on some socks before I go to bed. For my hands I dampened them and rub a little bit of Vaseline.

I like Cerave Healing Ointment. I use it on my hands and on my feet.i put the ointment on my feet and wear socks to bed. Works well. My fingers cracked much more when I was washing dishes for my whole family. Then I used rubber gloves.

Until I reached this age, I had not been bothered greatly with dry skin. This winter has been bad. My dry skin location is the backs of my hands, knuckles, and part way down the fingers. Its aggravated since my skin has thinned in that location. I've been using Jergens Ultra Healing. It contains a moisturizer and it helps temporarily. Looking through the listed products above, I see Neutrogena. I'm going to give that a try.

Someone on another thread explained that many of the common creams contain a chemical that causes an allergic like reaction (sorry can't remember what it is. If I can find the thread, I'll link it). It would explain why some people swear by a certain cream and others don't like it.

I had cracks on my feet so bad this year, I thought I had rocks in my boots. I started rubbing on cold pressed coconut oil a couple of times a day and exfoliated every other day. The cracks were completely gone in 3 days. I now put it on once a day.

Any of the many creams work for me, but I have to use them right out of the shower.

oh yeah, as dedtired mentioned, wear rubber gloves whenever you can to avoid getting your hands wet.

Those splits in your fingers are so painful! And difficult to heal. I agree with donna_loomis, use liquid skin, or New skin (available on Amazon, painted over the splits so that you can continue to use your hands a million times a day without screaming. My mother had the same problem and her doctor told her to just Superglue the splits together--I have done that many times to great effect, just be careful not to glue your fingers to each other :) I am looking forward to trying some of these cream recommendations for prevention too!

Nexcare makes a skin crack repair that works great for those really painful skin cracks on your fingers. It comes in a little bottle like finger nail polish, in the section where you buy Bandaids.

Lotion wise, I like the Aveeno mentioned above and Gold Bond, but really the thing that helps us the most (and I write about this often so sorry if this is old news) is a daily 1000 mg dose of Krill Oil. It’s good for a lot of things like athritus but another benefit is it helps keep your skin from getting dried out. My DH doesn’t use lotion and when he doesn’t take the Krill, the skin on his hands starts to peel real severely and they feel like sandpaper.

Neutrogena Norwegian forumla hand cream. <https://www.amazon.com/Neutrogena-Fragrance-Norwegian-Formula-Cream/dp/B00GMP9D14/ref=sr_1_2_a_it?ie=UTF8&qid=1544319794&sr=8-2-spons&keywords=neutrogena+norwegian+formula&psc=1&smid=ASEVS99O6FS73>;

I learned to love this stuff the 10 winters we spent in Maine. It is cold up there and it's a DRY cold and boy does ones skin suffer. This stuff is fabulous. As with "Brill Cream", a "little dab will do ya" - one truly uses only a tiny amount, thus the small tube. It doesn't make ones hands sticky or greasy and it really works.

This is the first year that I am seeking out remedies for dry hands. I just picked up a super moisturizing Nivea lotion which at least is absorbed really quickly. I will see if that works enough and if not, taking notes on all the great suggestions here.

coconut oil, olive oil and vitamin E.

i stay away from petroleum based products, products tested on animals and the added 'yuckies' they add to some products....i go as natural as i can.

I'm having a terrible time this year too. I use petroleum jelly at night with some success, but the real issue for me is that while working around the house during the day, I wash my hands a lot and it's not appropriate to reapply lotion many times, so they just end up dried out.

The best solution I have at the moment is moisturizing soap wherever I regularly wash hands. For a while I was using Aveeno body wash (transferred into a decorative pump), but then developed a sensitivity to it. I usually use good old Palmolive since it's less drying and no reactions, but lately I've resorted to glycerine bar soap- that the best solution I've found over the years as it's like putting a little moisturizer on your hands each time you wash them.

Quasifish, my dermatologist told me that hand sanitizers are less drying than repeated washings. Perhaps that might be an option, if rubber gloves aren't suitable.

Another coconut oil fan here. I actually use it to cleanse my face daily. Great stuff.

Kiehl's hand cream is great.

I use this on my heels (not a cream)/pumice bar I get at Sallys.

https://www.sallybeauty.com/nails/manicure-and-pedicure/nail-files-buffers-and-brushes/pink-contour-shape-bar/SBS-648220.html?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&adpos=1o1&scid=scplpSBS-648220&sc_intid=SBS-648220&utm_content=SBS-648220&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI5suXnKKd3wIVCLnACh21GwajEAQYASABEgK85fD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

nickel_kg, thanks for the suggestions. I have started to wear rubber gloves when the cleaning is planned, but there are so many times it's just chasing a cat, or helping a kid, or meal prep- just those things where you are busy doing household things and then realize you need to go wash up. I'll keep that in mind about hand sanitizer, that might work well some of the time. Thanks.