We turned the heat on two days ago and my hands are now a wreck (like sandpaper with some excema)! They're begging for hand lotion, and my favorite, the only one that I've tried that really works, contains gluten! Any suggestions for a somewhat "natural" product (I'm trying to avoid animal products) that is gf and works?! Thanks!

Hi Jamie.

I, too, have that problem. We've got that October snowfall this year and it's really cold... but even though I've been out hanging laundry, my hands are okay this year... although I still have to keep the house at 22C or my fingers go numb.

I made my own with coconut oil, a crushed niacin tablet (it's a bit gritty but I do believe it helps my skin as depleted niacin is thought to have potential in skin cancer - which I had, for those who don't know... and in rats - mice? - topical and ingested forms benefitted the ability to tolerate sunlight without skin damage) and a capsule or two of CoQ10. Don't heat the oil too much as it will dissolve at a very low temperature... like, body temperature... and you don't want to heat it too much or you might kill the healing traits of the oil.

I keep mine in a 'makeup' dish that has a lid on it in my bathroom. It's hard now as my upstairs is about 20C, so I have to rub my fingers on it to melt it a bit.

I use this on my face too. The oil absorbs in about 3 minutes and then I put my makeup on. I tend to put more on my face at night.

If I made another batch, I would add a couple of drops of iodine after reading about how it heals the skin from the inside out (eczema). I put it on my face scar (I had surgery last spring) and the Moms at gymnastics couldn't even see it at all. I'll try and post that info. source for you in the iodine file.

Of course, it was a big scar, so I just iodined it directly (to my embarrassment when the neighbours saw me with a big orange patch on my face one evening! ) But it really did work!

However, I have minor sun damage on my skin (actually pretty much everyone does, I've found, but we don't notice it much anymore because everyone has it... I guess 'cause we don't all wear masks when we go out. ) and I'm thinking that a couple of drops of iodine in the coconut oil mix, just about every day might just help that. It also couldn't hurt my hands and I want to see if it will work on the 'age spots' that are starting to form on my hands.

As usual, with oils, look for cold pressed if you choose to go this way.

If you have trouble with this but would still like to try it, let me know and I will ship you some of what I made.

HTH

Whatever you use for a base, try, adding some evening primrose oil...

I find that this ingredient (even used straight) heals up battered hands
very quickly. Just open caps up. The scent is not thrilling, but the healing is
very fast.

It never occurred to me to try making my own! Thank you!

Kim, about how much coconut oil do you use? I've never bought any CoQ10 - is that a pretty important ingredient? For that matter, I don't have any straight niacin, but I have a nice orange B complex!

MrsD, thanks for the tip on evening primrose oil!

I just used enough to cover the bottom of my jar by about 1/2 an inch.

I wasn't sure about it going rancid... but honestly, it has lasted me all through the summer and I will go well into winter.

This was my first go at it and I'm SOOO happy with it that I will not be buying store-bought moisturizer again!

Next time I do it though, I will crush the B vitamin and then make a paste of it with some water (because it's water soluble - not oil soluble) so that it might not end up so gritty. Of course part of the reason it's done so well is because the niacin grits were doing a bit of exfoliation as well.

Another thing to consider is that arrowroot draws out toxins and was used on poison arrow wounds. So if you wanted to make a mask to help draw out toxins, I would start there and mix it with oregano water (scientifically proven to prevent staph and e-coli growth but works better on staph, which is more related to skin infections anyway) and some honey that prevents other fungi and mould growth. Also, the arrowroot might be a very gentle exfoliant to get rid of dead skin so that new growth can occur unimpeded.

CoQ10 is said to be very good for skin... we were ingesting it for a while but honestly didn't notice much difference... so I used the last couple of capsules in my 'face cream' to see if it made a difference there. Honestly, it's all working really well, but I don't know exactly which ingredient really gets the most credit. I'll try and post some info. on it in a new food study thread.

Kim, thanks for all the great info! I was excited to see you mention oregano because I DO have that on hand ... then I read the abstract and realized you meant organo oil. Looks like I need to make a shopping list. The lotion sounds like a little bit goes a long way, so it still sounds like a good value!

So would that be a musical instrument or a body part? teehee

I can't help it .... I make so many typos that I'm really enjoying everyone else's lately.

By the by, oregano water has less liver toxicity possibility than oregano oil. I just didn't get to posting the oregano water stuff. I'll try and do it this morning.

So, when I said oregano water... that is what I meant... even though most abstracts and info. talk about the oil.

LOL Kim! I read the quote 3 times, thinking "something doesn't look right". THEN I read your post and figured out what it was! How typoifferick is that?