By Alison McGill
If you’ve ever been stuck in rush hour traffic and caught glimpse of your dehydrated, less-than-fabulous looking hands that sent you furiously digging for hand cream, we see you.
Dry, cracked and dull skin is a hands-on issue for all of us. The fact is we pay of ton of attention to the skin on our face, layering it religiously with serums, SPF, hydrating mists and massaging in moisturizers, but most of us spend very little time and energy on specialized care for our hands—and we should be.
“Our hands and face biologically age at a similar rate,” says Amy Bi, senior vice-president, brand-global at Deciem. “However, our hands are constantly exposed to environmental stressors, frequent washing and the everyday wear that comes with being one of the most-used areas of the body. Hands are often given way less care than the face, which can create the common belief that hands age first because they often appear to.”
According to Bi, as we age, the skin on our hands becomes thinner, collagen production slows and natural volume gradually diminishes. All these changes can make fine lines, crepey texture and a more hollowed appearance increasingly visible. This is why simply treating dryness doesn’t necessarily address everything we associate with aging hands.”
The beauty experts at Deciem have spent some time considering what our hands need to look and feel amazing and have just launched Loopha Helium Hand Cream ($30 for 90ml, loopha.com), an innovative formula designed specifically to volumize, firm and improve the elasticity of the skin on our hands. The secret ingredients? A potent botanical blend of a blackberry-derived extract that pumps and plumps skin volume and promotes a firmer skin texture, combined with a nourishing brown seaweed extract that supports natural collagen and smooths crinkly skin texture. It also smells delicious thanks to a zingy fragrance blend of citron zest, black pepper, fresh cypress and golden amber.
Read on to learn more from Bi about why our hands need extra TLC and why rethinking how we care for them is essential.
What happens to the volume and density of the skin on our hands as we age?
“Aging hands undergo structural changes beneath what we see at the surface,” Bi says. “As collagen production slows and natural volume diminishes, the skin can begin to look thinner, less dense and more deflated. That’s why we’re increasingly looking at hand aging through the lens of volume, density, firmness and elasticity, rather than hydration alone.”
Why has hand care lagged behind facial skincare when it comes to treatment-driven solutions?
“For decades, the hand care category has largely been centred around one primary benefit: moisture,” Bi explains. “Meanwhile, facial skincare has evolved considerably, with consumers becoming familiar with collagen supporting serums, barrier-strengthening creams and formulas designed around very specific visible signs of aging. Hand care hasn’t historically received that same treatment-driven attention, even though the hands can be one of the first places where aging becomes noticeable. What’s exciting within the category is that ingredient selection is becoming much more targeted. Instead of beginning and ending with moisturization, emerging formulations can look at visible volume loss, elasticity and barrier support as interconnected concerns.”
Your best tips for stepping up a hand care routine?
“Winter is a good time to become more intentional about hand care because keeping the skin hydrated and supporting its barrier becomes especially important,” Bi says. “Rather than waiting until hands feel extremely dry, make hand cream part of a consistent routine and reapply throughout the day, particularly after washing your hands. Keeping your hand cream somewhere you’ll actually use it—at your desk, beside the sink or on your bedside table—can help turn an occasional response to dryness into a daily skincare step. And because the hands experience both dryness and age-related structural changes, approach them in much the same way we now approach facial skincare: hydrate, support the barrier and address the visible signs of aging at the same time.”
