& its affects on your skin
Adjustments can be hard. We know you too have given up a lot during the pandemic. We miss get-togethers, family dinners, nights out with friends, trips to the park with our grandkids, and the celebrations that we so love that helps bring us all together. And, while I’m so grateful for curbside pick up for dinners (occasionally) its...well, just not the same. We've missed seeing all of you (our customers) at our usual venues and have relied on internet correspondence to keep in touch. Not quite the same as a handshake or seeing your smile, but for now this will have to do. So, here we are several months into ‘Covid-19’ schedules and quarantine adjustments. As you’re probably acutely aware of, your new habit of washing your hands every time you pass a sink puts a strain on maintaining moisture in your skin.
The constant scrubbing for a good two minutes can cause your skin to become unnecessarily dry. Dryness can lead to ‘cracking’ in the skin, and those places can be havens for all sorts of germs…even possibly harboring the COVID-19 virus. Ugh! So, what can you do to be sure you’re washing adequately without the nasty side effects of dryness and chafing? You need to start by looking at the ingredients in the bar/liquid soap you are currently using. Most store brands are detergents, and while they will help whisk away those nasty germs down the drain and render them helpless, it may, over time, also cause excessive skin dryness. To the rescue are our handcrafted, detergent free bars. If your hands are super dry, we suggest you try washing with a bar that has both a light exfoliant and is nourishing at the same time.
OUR FAVORITE BARS FOR DRY HANDS
Heal dry cracked skin with ingredients from nature
An all-time customer favorite is our Oats and Honey bar. We use pulverized oat flour, so our bars have a bit more ‘grit’ to gently remove dead skin cells. We add goat milk with all of its incredible benefits to help those younger underlying cells find the nutrients they are craving to stay soft and supple. Honey (locally sourced from a neighbor’s yard) is a natural additive to not only be a mild germ warden in this handwashing war but also lends a sweet, gentle scent to this all-natural bar.
We also carry other bars that offer both exfoliating properties and skin nourishment. Blueberry & Mojito, two of our bars from the fruit collection boast 20% Shea butter in their formula along with exfoliating Poppy seeds and Jojoba beads. The Jojoba beads also burst into an extra skin-loving softness for you. Lemon Lavender Poppyseed bars (as their name implies) also has exfoliating poppy seeds in a vegan formulated bubbly bar scented in a refreshing clean lemon and lavender
wash yo' hands, then use one of these
COMBAT DRYNESS FROM OVER WASHING AND HAND SANITIZER
Hand sanitizer is, of course, a good alternative when you don’t have a sink available. Check out this video that shows you how both soap and hand sanitizer destroys viruses’. They both work, but in different ways, and of course. However, as you may have already discovered, using hand sanitizer means putting alcohol on your skin. Excellent at both destroying virus particles but also great at drying skin. Ugh. So, using soap is the wiser choice if you want to try and avoid chaffed skin.
To further combat dryness, be sure to check out our lotion bar sticks. These are amazing at locking in moisture. The first ingredient you’ll find in most of your store both lotions is water. To put it simply, we left it out. Yup, just dropped it from the recipe. No water. Zip, zero, zilch, nada… What our lotion bar sticks do have is organic coconut oil and cocoa butter that have antioxidants and help seal in moisture already found in your skin. Sweet almond oil aids in moisture retention, while local (to Reno, Nevada) beeswax provides natural anti-bacterial and anti-viral properties. We’ve blended this into a great lotion bar stick that comes to you in a push-up recycled, biodegradable cardboard tube that you can easily toss into your purse, desk, or leave on the counter to use after washing. Why add a lotion bar to your skin washing routine? Simple. Just rub on a little down the middle of your hand, for instance. Now run water over your hand. See how the water just slides off or beads up where you applied the lotion bar? There’s your moisture-locking properties at work. While I’m using hand washing as an example, we actually created this bar (before anyone uttered the words ‘Covid-19.’ But we’ll say it a little louder, “Go wash your hands!” Then use one of our lotion bars anywhere you might have dry skin.