What is that Hand Sanitizer and Hand soap doing to your hands???
Are you finding your hands feel like sandpaper? No matter how much moisturizer you use, they can’t seem to get soft?
I want to share an old household recipe that my great-grandmother taught me when I was seven visiting her farm on one of our family trips to Uruguay, South America.
Shortly after dinner one evening at my grandmother’s house, my aunts and mother started doing the dishes. My great grandmother walked into the kitchen with a jar of olive oil in one hand and a cup of sugar in the other. Her daughter, my grandmother, laughed and told her not to worry; she had a stash of it already made up sitting by the kitchen sink for her granddaughters to use.
As the women were finishing up the dishes, I watched her mix one cup of olive oil and one cup of sugar into a jar and shake it up, then pour it into each of their hands. Knowing what to do, they each scrubbed their hands and rinsed it off.
“I was curious; what were they doing?”
My great grandmother walked over to me and poured some of the oily sugary stuff into my hands and guided me to the sink and taught me to scrub my hands and rinse it off.
In Spanish, she said, “Ves que suave te quedan tus manitos?” (see how soft your little hands feel?)
From that day onwards, I noticed all the kitchens of the women in my family had a little jar filled with sugar and olive oil by the kitchen sink.
Home care rituals can be found in many traditions and cultures. I have always liked the simplicity of this daily hand care ritual and wanted to share it with you during a time where we are all over sanitizing and cleansing our hands, leaving them dry and irritated.
Try gently exfoliating your hands with a mix of sugar and olive oil, rinse off and then follow with your moisturizer.
I have found that raw molasses sugar, the wet dewy type, is better than white sugar. The best olive oils are the ones you eat, and the fatty ones are best.
“My family followed another hand ritual every Sunday afternoon.”
The women would bring out all their skincare creams and give themselves a manicure, soaking their hands into a bowl of olive oil after. Wrap it in saran wrap for a few minutes, then go over to the sink, exfoliate their hands with the sugar oil mix and dry their hands. They followed by applying their old skincare masks, toners, creams, and serums on their hands. On special occasions, they would use their new good stuff!
My expensive Skincare products on my Hands?
YES!!!
Use up your old skincare products that you may have in your cosmetic drawer. You may also have samples of serums or face creams that were given to you when you last purchased cosmetics, use those all up on your hands!
Treat your hands like you do your face!
After sanitizing your hands and washing them with hand wash, try my great mother’s simple recipe of sugar and olive oil scrub.
Rinse off and dry hands thoroughly.
If you have my Vata Ubtan herbal dual performance Ayurveda powder:
– take 1 TSP into your hands
– add 1 cap full of my Vata Scalp and Body Formula blend
– exfoliate & rinse off thoroughly
– follow your Ayurveda Rituals Botanical Skincare products or whatever skincare line you have
Spray a facial toner like my Liquid Nectar botanical facial hydrating toner onto your hands, let the toner of your choice dry.
Apply a generous amount of Rejuvenation Serum or a serum of your choice; applying serums to your hands will help preserve the skin and begin the cellular repair.
My Rejuvenation Serum is made with Pomegranate oil along with other anti-oxidant herbs and essential oils.
This is an expensive treat for your hands, but just one to two drops added to any other serum or moisturizer will make a tremendous difference for your skin!
Some of you may even have old bottles of my Rejuvenation Serum that are over a year old. No worries, use them up! Use them on your hands, not your face.
Our product shelf life is 1.5 years, but the Rejuvenation Serum is naturally preserved with essential oils that are safe to use on your hands, keeping you from wasting leftover batches.
After massaging your Serum, follow with Renewal Cream, or a facial moisturizer of your choice. Mix your good quality facial moisturizer into your hand cream or Shea Butter for further moisture support.
Shea Butter is an excellent ingredient to add to any of your moisturizers. It’s available at all health food stores and can be melted down into an oil and poured into your moisturizers.
Hands deserve our extra love and supportive care during this time of overuse.
Be generous! Spoil your hands. They are doing such a great job keeping you safe.
– Andrea Olivera
