EcoBeauty: Hand Care for Cooks

Let's Face it: Cooking can get crazy. You stir a sauce with one hand and reach for spices with another. At the same time, you’re slicing and sautéing, making it easy to get burned. Or bruised. Or cut. Then there are the the chapped fingers and dried-out nails that come from all that wear and tear. Not to mention the garlic and onion smells that get under your skin and stay there for days. That’s why we went in search of these top tips to help us all deal with typical injuries to kitchen-weary hands.

BURNS
Once you’ve run cold water over a burn for a few minutes to stop the heat and lessen the injury’s severity, apply a few drops of tea tree oil or lavender oil diluted in a basic vegetable oil to gently disinfect the burn, suggests naturopath Laurie Steelsmith and author of Natural Choices for Women’s Health. The oils’ antibacterial action cleans without stinging.

For fast, all-natural relief, squeeze aloe gel on the burn, advises Ann Gentry, founder and chef of vegan restaurants Real Food Daily in Santa Monica and West Hollywood, CA. Aloe adds cooling moisture to the skin as it heals the burn. Or dress it with a topical cream made with calendula, an anti-inflammatory that soothes pain, and comfrey, a healing herb that promotes cell regeneration.

“Burns heal best when they’re kept clean, lubricated and protected by an ointment or herbal salve [such as those recommended, right],” says Hema Sundaram, MD, a Washington, DC-based dermatologist.

Silicone mitts save hands from oven rack burns better than cloth.

CUTS
Protect a cut from cooking ingredients—and cooking ingredients from a cut—with gel bandages. The heat-softened plastic molds to your hand and adheres the bandage directly to the cut so that no air, liquid or crumbs can touch it. What’s more, the adhesive is super-strong—meaning you can keep tending the wok without your worrying your bandage will slip off into the stir-fry.

Because hand veins and blood vessels are so close to the skin, digit injuries tend to bleed a lot. Slow the flow of a fingertip cut by squeezing the knuckle just below it on both sides, advises Andrew Klapper, MD, a New York–based plastic surgeon. If you feel dizzy or queasy, sit down and raise the injured hand above your head. This reduces blood flow to the affected area and increases it to the heart and brain to help clear your head. See a doctor if the cut is over a joint or won’t stop bleeding.

Stave off scars by treating cuts with a blend of vitamin E, aloe and lavender every time you change the bandage, advises Steelsmith. For a home remedy, mix a few drops of lavender essential oil, aloe gel and the contents of two vitamin E capsules.

Prone to kitchen nicks and scrapes but need to keep cooking? Have a supply of latex gloves on hand (available at any drugstore). They’ll keep cuts and bandages clean and dry.

DRY SKIN
Set a bottle of lotion that contains glycerin and rose oil by the sink, and rub it on the moment dinner goes into the oven, advises Steelsmith. Glycerin attracts moisture to the skin, and rose oil is a natural emollient.

Keep stubborn, painful cracks slathered in shea butter while you work. The deep-moisturizing cream is all-natural and non-toxic, so you don’t have to worry about it coming in contact with food.

DAMAGED NAILS
Brush decolorized iodine on nail tips every night for a week to strengthen weak, brittle nails, then apply once a week to maintain hardness, suggests Erin Welch, MD, a dermatology professor at University of Texas Southwestern Medical School in Dallas.

Rub almond oil into cracked cuticles with a cotton swab before bedtime. Then slip on cotton gloves (or thin cotton socks in a pinch) and go to sleep. This deep-moisturizes dried skin so it can heal.

Keep nails short and neatly trimmed so they don’t catch or tear while you’re cooking.