Apply These 7 Secret Techniques to Improve Hand Hygiene

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Both soap and water are hard on your skin. Here are nine most useful tips from a dermatologist to manage dry and irritated hand rashes. Frequent hand washing takes away the waxy lipid in the outer layer of your skin. It is the outer layer of your skin that helps keep water in your skin.  When the lipids begin to dissolve from soap and water, the natural skin water escapes out of your skin through what you called trans epidermal water loss that may lead to more dryness and other skin condition.


1. You don't necessarily need to use antibacterial soap. Hand soap will do the job. Adequate handwashing is the most effective way to reduce transmission of infectious diseases.  However, you may want to avoid using hot water because the higher temperature results in a higher lipid strip on your skin. On the other hand, cold water is also not fair to your skin when it comes to quality hygiene.


2. Another best option is an alcohol-based hand sanitizer. Still, due to shortage, most are gravitating towards alcohol-free hand sanitizers. These sanitizers have —benzalkonium (it is a common antibacterial compound ingredient in hand sanitizer and wet wipes), which is not recommended for good hand hygiene. There is always a possibility of allergy acquisition. So, don't be mistaken that the alcohol-free ones provide fewer chances for drying and irritation. Better choose a recommended hand saint or use soap with water. But whichever you choose, your hand will likely end up dry. Dermatologist advises that at least select a fragrant -free option, and each time you wash your hands, use just enough amount of soap to cover your hands. 


3. Use good traditional fashioned hand soap or fragrant-free soap. The dermatologist recommends because it has fewer ingredients that you might be establishing on your skin while washing your hands and thus lessen the chance of irritation. Hand sanitizer or spunlace nonwoven fabric wet wipes are other hand hygiene choices if there is no access to soap and water.


4. Soaking and foaming too much are not suitable for your hands. These procedure is not going to provide more effective hand hygiene. It will strip off that lipid barrier and make you more inclined to dryness and irritation and develop a lot of mechanical friction and soap. Just a pea-size is enough to lather your hands, make sure you rinse off properly.  Soap residue left in contact with your skin will cause skin irritation.

5. The next tip is to stop wearing rings. Each time we wash our hands while wearing a ring, it traps the soap residue underneath the grooves' ring and may exacerbate hand dermatitis. The mechanical ring also has nickel alloys present in it, which keeps on rubbing back and forth in our skin and produces mechanical irritation for just moving back and forth. Even high-quality jewelry, a lot of times, have nickel alloy present, and nickel is the most common cause of allergic contact dermatitis. Frequent handwashing with soap and water trapped in the ring and nickel substance would set up to skin drying, leading to contact sensitization.  Also, rings can harbor dirt and is not suitable for hand hygiene. Most surgeons wear their wedding rings in their scrub pants in waistbands like they are not worried it might get lost.
 
6. After each hand cleansing, apply an ointment right away, while your skin is a little bit damped but not soaking wet; doing this will provide a seal and contain the water back into the skin. 
Dermatologist states that she is getting querries if damp skin acquires more infectious diseases. Ointments will dry your skin faster and lock in hydration and reduce hands epidermal water loss.  
 
 It is recommended to use moisturizing ointment instead of lotion or cream. The lotion has a large component of water and not as inclusive of locking moisture in your skin. 100% of Petroleum is the most effective at reducing trans-epidermal moisture loss. Even if you are not washing your hand, make it a habit to moisturize it as often as possible.
 
 
7. People are often using too much soap and gravitating towards lotion instead of using an ointment or balm. Keep reapplying the ointment in your hands over and over again, it just keeps on stripping away some of the skin barriers, but it also helps restore that barrier, which is what you need.


8. Hand gloves are suggested to people with eczema after applying heavy hand cream during sleep or daytime.  You can buy these hand gloves in Amazon or Walmart. Even if you do not have eczema, you may also do this to dive in hydration to the skin, put on heavy hand cream, then cover it with a pair of gloves. It will help recover from all the handwashing you have done the entire day and continue until you sleep that way if you feel comfortable with it.  Or you may keep the gloves in your hands for a good hour or as long as you can tolerate while relaxing or just watching your tv or reading a book.

Rubber gloves are also useful if you are doing those house chores like washing the dishes by hand, or maybe soaping the floor or any housework that would require wet work, make sure you are wearing gloves.  Most household detergents we are using are not meant for our skin, but if you were in contact with it, rinse your hand thoroughly, and immediately grease off with Vaseline, this will give you a little bit more barrier protection and will help any dry skin condition, including eczema.

9. Put a cool-mist humidifier in the bedroom, not the warm mist humidifier. A cool-mist humidifier helps reduce the drive of water to exit from our skin, humidifying the room's atmosphere. Large humidifiers are adequate to cover your entire room, but if you have the small ones, keep it close to wherever you are in the place, sitting on a chair, or going to bed.