125: When Hand Washing Hurts: How To Naturally Avoid and Help Dry, Cracked, Painful Hands

Last Updated on July 8, 2026

What can you do when handwashing hurts? Soap and even water can trigger pain and burning!

I know this all too well when my hands were wrecked from dyshidrotic hand eczema.

When you're struggling with hand rashes, washing your hands is a dreadful, painful experience that I'll bet you've gone to great lengths to avoid.

Maybe you're wearing gloves.

Or avoiding activities that would cause your hands to get dirty.

I totally understand.

The inspiration for this episode arose just before the pandemic, as my father was dying from cancer in a hospital.

My hands took a big beating because of the handwashing with the hospital's commercial soap and hand sanitizers.

After just one day of handwashing was traumatic feeling my hands dry out and become so tight. A sensation I'd not had in a few years since stopping my hand eczema. It was upsetting to think that I was washing my way back to a thousand papercuts all over again.

And this is what the many doctors, nurses and other health professionals who I work with tell me…

Because they MUST wash their hands, as required by their workplace.

So this episode is dedicated to everyone who is struggling with any type of rash impacting your hands, and trying to figure out if there's a better, gentler way to care for your hands so that handwashing doesn't hurt anymore!

 

Or, listen on your favorite app: iTunes (Apple Podcasts) | Spotify | Stitcher | TuneIn | Subscribe on Android

In this episode:

• How handwashing destroys your hands (dry, sandpaper feeling, flaking, cracking)
• 2 biggest triggers for skin barrier breakdown
• Natural soap alternatives (you haven't heard of that won't wreck your skin barrier)
• How to make GENTLER soap (it’s ridiculously easy to do)
• Tips for locking in moisture after washing your hands

Handwashing Links:

JEN RECOMMENDS… Nourished Barrier Support Balm (DermaQuell). Use code QUELL10 at checkout to get $10 off your first purchase.

Healthy Skin Show ep. 416: My Hand Eczema Journey (Lessons I Wish Everyone With Dyshidrotic Eczema Knew)

Healthy Skin Show ep. 039: How Probiotics Turned My Hand Eczema Around w/ Nora Ureste

Quotes:

Commercial or conventional soap products made with petro-chemicals, like mineral oil, will strip away your skin’s natural oils.

For your hands, use a really thick cream because lighter lotions (like what you use on your face) will not cut it right now due to higher water content.

Hand Washing: How To Naturally Avoid Dry, Cracked, Painful Hands (FULL TRANSCRIPT)

Welcome back to episode #125 of the Healthy Skin Show!

In today's episode, I want to talk about hand washing.

We are living in an age of excessive hand washing. It seems like this all kind of hit us over the last three to four weeks.

For many of us, there's this panic because your skin barrier is not a state that can really even handle doing this much hand washing!

There's a lot of people with healthy skin that are having a lot of trouble. Even they notice that their hands are completely dried out and the skin is cracking.

You might remember my eczema impacted my hands. During the fall and winter months, it was really common for my skin to be so excessively dried out.

I felt like I had paper cuts everywhere! 

I couldn't wash my hands with water because water alone would burn.

I’d wear white gloves to bed every night after smothering my hands in oils and all sorts of balms with the hope of holding on to any semblance of moisture that I possibly could.

In many respects, it felt like a losing battle.

So when all of a sudden every single one of us is being encouraged to wash your hands for 20 or 30 seconds multiple times a day…

Having to use harsh cleaning products like Lysol and Clorox and all of these harsh chemicals, everywhere to basically kill viruses on any potential surface…

I started to realize quickly that my hands couldn't take this.

And I found out from reaching out to many of you that you were in the same boat, and you didn't know what to do.

So I sent a series of questions to one of our favorite guests on the show — Rachael Portillo!

While she couldn’t join me live to answer my questions, she was able to record some answers for you so that I could get this out to you very quickly.

It’s my hope that what you’ll learn here will be able to help save your hands, so that way you're not dealing with very painful, dried, cracked skin. And that you don’t end up disrupting the barrier of the skin.

As I was sitting in the midst of a hospital for many days with my dad before he passed away in the beginning of this whole COVID-19 thing. I’m washing my hands like crazy with all their harsh soaps and, of course, my hands got sooo dried out.

Rachael, a licensed esthetician and skincare educator, gave me some tips that really helped!

That’s why I knew she'd be the right person to speak on this particular topic!

Why Hand Washing Is Wrecking Your Hands (Even If You Didn’t Have Rashes On Them Before)

JEN: Why does all of this hand washing dry out your hands whether you have eczema or some sort of rash on your hands or you had very healthy skin before all of this started?

RACHAEL: There really are two main reasons that your hands are quickly drying out.

The first one has to do with pH and the second one has to do with the ingredients that are in the soaps and cleaners that actually do the cleansing.

I'll start with pH. As you know if you have been a listener of the Healthy Skin Show for any period of time, the skin is an acidic environment.

Your skin’s pH should be about 4.5 to 5.5.

The reason that it is slightly acidic is that the microbes living on the surface of the skin require a slightly acidic environment to thrive. They are responsible for helping to keep our skin’s immune system and barrier function intact.

Now, water itself is more alkaline. 

Pure distilled water is a pH of 7 which is considered neutral.

(JEN’S NOTE: You can purchase distilled water in pretty much any grocery store, but it’s not the same as bottled water. It has to be clearly marked as “distilled water”.)

But most people's tap water, unless it has some sort of a pH adjuster on it, is going to be closer to 8, or even higher than that.

Constant contact with water (an alkaline pH) on the slightly acidic skin is actually quite irritating in and of itself without the addition of any soaps or cleaners.

That’s why even just washing your hands with water more often is going to be enough to cause extra irritation dryness and inflammation. It can make your hands feel really dry, red, sore and, for some people, it can even cause really severe chapping or cracks.

Using soap or even a non-soap cleanser makes the handwashing experience even more alkaline because soap itself is even more alkaline than water.

Soap’s pH is closer to 9!

Most of your non-soap foaming cleaners, even though they have a lower pH than that of soap, are still going to be around 8 or 8.5.

A very skilled soap maker might actually be able to make a lower PH soap depending on how much lye they use and what oils happen to be in the soap.

But that is not something that you're typically going to find in soaps on the market. Most of the soaps on the market are going to have that pH around 9.

Soap and non-soap foaming cleansers are made with surfactants which are detergents that separate the oils from the skin below. This is because the dirt or any type of particles sit in the oil.

Keep in mind that your skin’s microbiome also lives on the surface of the skin, residing in and feeding on the natural oils that your skin produces.

Separating the oil away from the skin with surfactants causes the second reason for skin dryness.

Soaps that are made with natural plant oils will have some sort of lipid protection even though they're cleansing. So in most cases, I recommend natural soap over surfactants for hand washing.

Natural Anti-microbial Soap Ingredient Suggestions

Washing more frequently with a higher pH than what the skin needs is going to cause irritation.

That irritation is going to lead to potential chronic dryness as well as aggravated rashes and other flare-ups.

But also the surfactants in the soap itself can cause an issue.

If you’re using a really strong soap that's NOT made with natural plant oils…

If the soap is kind of a commercial or conventional product made with petro-chemicals, like mineral oil…

It’s going to really strip away your skin’s natural oils without putting back any protection or nutrients.

So the combination of the alkalinity with harsh surfactants separating the oils away from the skin PLUS washing your hands way more than normal…

That's a recipe for leaving your skin dry, irritated, and more susceptible to problems.

But we’ve got to wash our hands, especially right now given the climate we live in.

So I’m not saying “Don’t wash your hands”.

As far as a hand-washing regimen is concerned, I suggest following the CDC handwashing guidelines to wash for a minimum of 20 seconds at a time with soap and water.

That said, I do not recommend using anti-bacterial soaps because these anti-bacterial agents are extremely harsh.

Some of them that are on the market are still toxic even though they've been banned in other countries, as they too are really disruptive to the skin’s microbiome.

Adding in anti-bacterial or antimicrobial agents on a regular basis will kill those healthy skin microbes, which lead to greater disruption of your skin barrier.

It can also leave you more susceptible to picking up pathogens (bad microbes) on the skin, which most of us are trying to avoid.

There are certain herbs and oils out there that are naturally more antimicrobial!

I recommend opting for soaps made with the following naturally anti-microbial ingredients:

• Yarrow
• Tamanu
• Neem oil
• Black seed oil
• Calendula
• Lavender
• Tea Tree oil

These are some ingredients to look for in your handwashing products.

They're not so harsh that they're going to disrupt the skin’s microbiome. And using natural extracts or oils from these plants means that you're also getting the nutrients from those plants.

So it's a more balanced antimicrobial experience that's not going to wipe out an entire population of bacteria and throw off the bio-diversity of the skin’s microbiome.

Best DIY Soap Suggestion To Avoid Drying Out Your Hands

JEN: And is there a way to minimize even further if you're using, say, a natural soap? The impact that it would have because I would imagine that even natural soaps could be drying.

RACHEAL: I'm not recommending a full-strength soap-based cleanser.

What I recommend is a Castille soap or African Black Soap liquid soap diluted to a 25 to 75 ratio of liquid soap to distilled water in a reusable foaming soap dispenser.

Here are some other product suggestions to buy at the store as well!

These soaps are powerful enough when paired with a foaming dispenser to give you enough cleansing action.

But you're not going to get the full strength and as high of an alkaline experience.

I’ll share with you a PRO tip…

Swap water (or distilled water) in your foaming soap by using a hydrosol instead.

Normally I teach my skincare clients to avoid putting expensive ingredients (like a hydrosol) into a product that you're ultimately going to just wash down the sink.

But I because our hand health is being compromised with all of this hand washing, a hydrosol in place of distilled water to dilute Castille soap or black clay soap is really smart.

Hydrosols have a lower pH than water, which is much closer to your skin's pH.

Great hydrosol options would be:

• Lavender
• Lemon balm
• Calendula hydrosol

Best Way To Moisturize Your Hands After Washing Them

JEN: That's actually a really genius tip. So if then you went on to moisture, what are your thoughts on using moisturizers on your hands?

RACHAEL: Right after you wash while your hands are still damp, moisturize them right away.

I recommend keeping a moisturizer in your handbag with you, or have one just at every sink wherever you wash your hands.

It is a good idea to make a portable one that can be carried wherever you go.

A little travel container from a drug store will easily work!

For your hands, I recommend a really thick cream because lighter lotions (like what you use on your face) will not cut it right now. Lighter products are higher in water content and thus higher in pH.

Look for a hand cream, lotion, balm or butter that has more plant oils in it.

Specifically, review the ingredients list to confirm that plant-based oils and butters are as close to the top of the ingredient list as possible. Water-containing ingredients (like aloe vera) should sit below them.

And like I said, I really do recommend choosing ones that are naturally anti-microbial such as Tamanu, Neem, and Black seed oil.

I should mention that Shea butter also has natural anti-microbial properties and is commonly seen in your hand creams and hand balms.

(JEN ADDS: Avoid coconut oil on your hands, especially right now… it isn’t well absorbed and can be irritating to already irritated hands.)

Bee's wax, candelilla wax or carnauba wax are other good ingredients to look for as well because they help to fortify the skin's natural barrier.

One product that we love that combines many of these ingredients is Nourished Barrier Support Balm! It's a petroleum-free and lanolin-free balm that adds an extra layer of these ingredients to support dry-feeling and unhappy skin. It's a fantastic, natural balm that locks in hydration, soothes and softens your skin.

It can also be layered over your favorite moisturizer!

I created Nourished Barrier Support Balm to give that extra nourishment to the skin in the form of essential fatty acids and oil-soluble vitamins and antioxidants. Plus, there's no added steroids, fragrances, hormone disruptors, parabens, phthalates or sulfates!

Use code QUELL10 to get $10 off your first order of Nourished Barrier Support Balm (and any of our other Quellshop.com products).

I hope this has been incredibly insightful.

While this episode covered handwashing and what to do when handwashing hurts, this could also apply to other areas of your skin that have become raw, angry, cracked, and uncomfortable.

Got any questions or thoughts on this episode? Leave them below so we can keep the conversation going!

And please — share this episode with everyone you know.