Two of My Friends

Throughout my teen years, I knew that winter meant I would have cracked and bleeding cuticles. I always assumed this occurred because of the two hours every morning, and two hours every evening, that I spent milking cows. My hands were usually wet or cold, or wet and cold, from washing udders and carrying the milking machines around. Out in the barn, (in the olden days) it was impossible to wear gloves because your hands were wet so often. The whole process involved lots of washing, rinsing, etc. Anyway, the ultimate result was chapped hands. I used lots of lotion, carried it around in my purse and had it by my bedside. Actually, in an attempt to keep my hands from being a total disaster all winter, I became very faithful at applying the udder cream to the cows that my dad encouraged us to use. By "greasing" the cows, I was also slathering it on my own hands and it helped to protect my skin from the ravages of the job.

However, after I moved away from the farm, I found, to my dismay, that my hands would still get dry and cracked and my cuticles would peel and bleed anytime the weather got cold and dry. Blah! I spent years rubbing Vaseline on my hands and sleeping in gloves, or over-lotioning. Then...I met the best friend that cracked cuticles ever had:

 

This blurry photo may not show you the title clearly: Burt's Bees Lemon Butter Cuticle Cream. It smells lovely (unlike Bag Balm) and really, really works! When I use this faithfully -- i.e. night and morning--- it really keeps my pathetic fingernails from having raggedy cuticles. There isn't any cracking, peeling or bleeding. I only wish I'd found it sooner. But when I went online to look up the history, it seems that Burt's Bee cosmetic products have only been widely distributed since the early 2000's.

I've used another product of theirs longer than the cuticle cream:

This is Burt's Bees Res-Q Ointment. It is a first aid cream that has one of my favorite healing herbs as an ingredient: comfrey. When I had a serious injury to my hand in 1980, my mom made some poultices from comfrey leaves she'd been given by a friend and the wound healed up very quickly. I've used comfrey leaves in poultices for a variety of injuries and bruising on myself and some friends with excellent results. So I was quite pleased to find an ointment with comfrey.

Anyway, I just wanted to introduce you to two of my "friends" and recommend them to you. We'll be buddies for many years to come or until I move to the tropics where there is never cold, dry weather. But...I'll probably still manage to hurt myself, so I'll keep Res-Q in stock.