I GOTTA HAND IT TO 'EM . . .

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[From the STMcC archive; 2006, March 3rd.]




Dry Skin Hand Cream: O’KEEFFE’S WORKING HANDS

Grade: A

I GOTTA HAND IT TO 'EM . . .

...O'Keeffe's 'Working Hands Handcreme' really works. This is hands down the best remedy for dry, cracked hands that I've ever found.

Out here in Airheadzona it's a notoriously dry climate - so dry in fact, that it has given birth to our most popular regional joke: "But it's a DRY heat!" Come spend some time out here with us (if you're stupid enough) and you'll hear this joke repeated ad nauseam. You'll find it on the lips of every brain-baked resident, and on coffee cups and T-shirts accompanied by images of skeletons crawling across the desert wasteland where only snakes, coyotes, roadrunners, cacti, and idiots seem to survive.

But we experience this dryness not just during the hot Summer months - May through sometimes October - but even during (what we call) "Winter." And the joke can sometimes be heard even when we manage to get a little precipitation:

"Man! Was it raining cats and dogs last night, or what?"

"Yeah, but it's a dry rain."

Of course, usually it's too dry to rain. (As I write this, Phoenix is in the midst of a near record-setting drought. We have not seen drops of anything, wet OR dry, falling out of our sky for 135 consecutive days!) I hope to capitalize on our reputation someday by opening my own Phoenix business which I intend to name, 'BUT IT'S A DRY CLEANERS.'

For me, the Airheadzona dryness affects my hands the worst from December through February. In the past I've had my fingers tortured by those deep cracks that develop along the nails and across the joints. We're talkin' painful paper cut-like wounds ("skin splits") that open up and can take 3 and 4 weeks to heal. I've tried innumerable hand cream and lotion products over the years to avoid these skin ruptures. Jergens? Forget it. Lubriderm? No good. Corn Husker's Lotion? Not bad; absorbed better than any other brand, but it needs to be reapplied constantly.

Late last November or early December, when I felt that dry, unpleasant sensation of oncoming "skin splits" along my finger joints, I picked up a jar of O'Keeffe's 'Working Hands' - attracted to the lovely green container and the idea that it was something new to me.

The directions read: "Apply at bedtime and 2-4 times daily." So I rubbed the stuff into my hands very well for 4 or 5 consecutive nights at bedtime, and during the day once or twice in that 4 or 5 day period. And I don't mean once or twice each day, I mean once or twice TOTAL during that span of time. The dryness disappeared and my hands were quickly rejuvenated.

Since those 4 or 5 days and nights, I've used O'Keeffe's every so often, only when I felt that wizened tautness across my joints and around the nails. That feeling is always gone within a day or two. This is the first (what we call) "Winter" in my eleven (what we call) "Winters" in Airheadzona, that I have not experienced a single "skin split" in my eight fingers and one thumb. (Lost a thumb in '96 when the "skin splits" forced me to chop it off to get some relief from the pain!)

O'Keeffe's 'Working Hands' works on hands (feet too, they say) and is "safe and effective for diabetics." Although it does leave just the SLIGHTEST abnormal feeling on the hands (feels almost like a fine powder has been applied), that's a small price to pay for the remarkable healing it provides.

Do your hands need help? Give 'em a helping hand with O'Keeffe's 'Working Hands Handcreme.' The stuff is so concentrated that this one jar I purchased will probably last me a decade...or until I wise up and move out of Airheadzona - whichever comes first.

(Yeah, we're humorous out here, but it's a "dry" humor.)

~ Stephen T. McCarthy
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