Constantly washing my hands with soap or using hand sanitizer often leaves them painfully dry and cracked. So I now use this hand cream with shea butter, cocoa butter, beeswax, and nourishing oils to help with dryness & and restore my skin.
Update: My DIY Hand Cream Recipe With Natural Ingredients is a more recent post complete with video and images. A simple beginner hand moisturizer recipe that nourishes dry skin and saves you money.
Watch How To Make This Cream
Restore & Soothe Cracked Skin
During the recent pandemic, I posted how to make my homemade hand sanitizer, and shared the product with my family. The last time I saw my daughter I was shocked at how sore and cracked her hands were. She’s a key worker, so it’s lots of hand washing and sanitizer for her.
This is one of the main reasons for making this product, so that my daughter and her colleagues could coat their hands with wonderful restorative DIY hand lotion between shifts.
So I created a brand new hand cream. And I’m so happy I did, as her hands are looking so much better now, even after a week. The only problem I have now is making enough of this cream to keep up with the demands for it!
Why Make A Hand Cream?
Originally I thought about making a diy balm, no water just oils and waxes, and although this makes a decent hand cream, the problem with this is that balms tend to leave your hands greasy for quite some time which wouldn’t be very useful if you are putting medical gloves on and off throughout the course of the day.
I’ve chosen all my favorite dry skin ingredients in this recipe, but I am aware that at the time of writing this, it may not be possible to get hold of everything on the list so substitutes can be made, which I have included in the recipe below.
What’s In This Hand Cream
Lavender Hydrosol
This brings some great anti-fungal and soothing properties to the hand cream. It’s one of the best hydrosols for hydrating skin yet is super gentle and smells wonderful. As with most cosmetic facecare recipes, you can usually replace hydrosols with good old distilled water and you will still produce a great cream.
Wheatgerm Oil
It is packed full of vitamins E and B, essential fatty acids, and in omega 3 oils. Wheat-germ oil is a little underrated mainly due to its strong aroma and sticky feel when used alone. Don’t understate the benefits of this oil as it repairs and nourishes the skin so well and is very economical to buy. Good substitutes are Jojoba oil, avocado, sweet almond or olive oil.
Essential oils
Im using lavender essential oil. If you have used Wheat-germ as your carrier oil you may notice the finished cream has a strong wheat-germ scent, so I’d recommend using a good amount of essential oil here.
You could also substitute for your favorite essential oil here, but do not use phototoxic citrus essential oils as they are not good for your skin if you are out in direct sunlight. Frankincense, chamomile, rosemary & geranium all work well here. But remember to stick within the dermal limits of your essential oil, which you should be able to find in your supplier guidelines.
Allantoin Powder
This is a non-irritant synthetic version of comfrey root powder, it’s safe to use and a great little addition to any cream that’s targeting dry, cracked, irritated, and aging skin. It also claims to make sensitive skin more resistant to everyday wear and tear and aid the healing and regeneration of new cell growth.
All in all Allantoin powder is a handy cosmetic ingredient to have around. I don’t recommend substituting the Allantoin but if you really can’t get hold of it, then leave it out. After all, the other ingredients in this DIY hand lotion will still pack a punch.
Shea Butter & Cocoa Butter
We all know how good these butters are at moisturizing and trapping moisture into the skin. They are often the go-to for most skincare formulations, and why wouldn’t they be as they are suitable for all skin types. They can relieve dry itchy irritated skin, and reduce red blotchy marks while nourishing and restoring your skin.
Beeswax
Is added to give the skin a protective coating, I didn’t want the cream too waxy but hands that are in and out of water due to constantly washing them will need a bit of beeswax love. This can be substituted for calendula wax to make it vegan friendly.
D- Panthenol
This comes in both a powder and liquid form. Vitamin pro B5 It’s a superb moisturizer, it is extremely hydrating and it can help to keep our skin moist by capturing moisture from the air.
I’m using the liquid D- Panthenol in this recipe, to be honest, I prefer the liquid one as it’s added at the cooldown and you can feel the texture of the cream becoming creamier.
You can easily substitute one for the other but they do need treating differently. The powdered one is fairly-heat stable and should be added to the water phase before placing in the water bath (see step 2). The liquid one isn’t heat-stable so it needs to be added to the cool down phase once the cream is below 100f (40c)
Luxury Hand Cream Recipe For Dry Skin
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Equipment
- Sterile Container and Lid or glass jars
Ingredients
Oil Phase
- 14 grams Wheatgerm Oil (or jojoba, avocado, sweet almond, olive)
- 6 grams Shea Butter
- 6 grams Cocoa Butter
- 2 grams Beeswax (or Calendula Wax)
- 8 grams Emulsifying Wax NF (or Polawax)
Water Phase
- 55 grams Lavender Hydrosol (or Distilled Water)
- 5 grams Glycerine
Cooldown Phase
- 1 gram Allantoin Powder
- 1 gram Liquid D-Panthenol (Want to use D Panthenol Powder form, see notes)
- 1 gram Vitamin E Oil
- 1 gram Preservative (optional)
- 10 drops Lavender Essential Oil
Video
Instructions
- Weigh the oil, cocoa butter, shea butter, beeswax, and emulsifying wax into a heat proof jug or bowl.14 grams Wheatgerm Oil, 6 grams Shea Butter, 6 grams Cocoa Butter, 2 grams Beeswax, 8 grams Emulsifying Wax NF
- Weigh out the lavender hydrosol and glycerine into a separate heatproof container. If you are using D Panthenol powder stir this into the water at this point.55 grams Lavender Hydrosol, 5 grams Glycerine
- Make a water bath (or use a double boiler) by placing a small amount of water (about 1 1/2 inches deep) into a shallow flat bottomed saucepan, and bring to a low simmer on medium heat.
- Sit both the water and oil containers into the simmering water and leave them to melt. Heat until the waxes and butters are fully melted within the oil and both containers reach 70c.
- Once melted and heated, turn the heat off and remove them from the water bath.
- Now it’s time to combine your oil and water together, so whilst stirring pour the water base (hydrosol, and glycerine combination) to the oil base. This will produce a milky sometimes yellowish liquid.
- Mix/stir constantly until the temperature has cooled below 100f around 40c. Your mixture should be a nice creamy consistency by this point. You shouldnt need to whip it or use a hand mixer.
- Now its time to add the cool down ingredients.Place the container back on the scales, press the tare button and weigh the Allantoin powder into the cream and stir well. Press the tare again and add the liquid D-panthenol. Repeat the same with the vitamin E and preservative. Give the cream a good mix after adding each ingredient to make sure they are well combined into the cream.Add between 5 to 10 drops of lavender essential oil. If you have used Wheat-germ as your carrier oil you may notice the finished cream has a strong wheat-germ scent, so I’d recommend using the full 10 drops of essential oil here. The other carrier oils choices have a milder scent and although the lavender essential is great for dry chapped skin you also want it to smell nice and not be too overbearing so I’ll leave this to your personal preference within the range I’ve suggested (between 5 to 10 drops).1 gram Allantoin Powder, 1 gram Liquid D-Panthenol, 1 gram Vitamin E Oil, 1 gram Preservative, 10 drops Lavender Essential Oil
- Spoon into your sterile container with lid
Notes
Final Thoughts
So that’s my amazing, restorative hand cream. You don’t have to be a key worker to know that washing your hands so much is detrimental to the health of your skin. We’re all washing our hands like crazy right now.
While it is important to ensure we’re taking precautions in these difficult times, we also need to think about the health of our skin. This cream will keep your hands feeling soft and fresh, I can guarantee you that.
My daughter said something funny to me the other day. With her hands being so dry after constant washing, she said this hand cream made her hands feel ‘normal’ again.
While the word normal doesn’t really seem like an exciting or catchy adjective to use for a skincare product, with all of our lives turned upside down I feel like a little dash of normalcy is exactly what we all need.
Moving on from the hand cream, we can also create a wonderful homemade lotion for dry and mature skin that will nourish any part of your skin!
