The best hand cream for dry, chapped hands

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When it comes to dry, irritated, and chapped skin, fast-acting and effective moisture is important.
O’Keeffe’s Working Hands Hand Cream delivers relief and lasting moisture, making it our top pick, hands down.

Winters can be harsh all-around, but the dry, cracked skin that the winter weather brings makes the season particularly difficult to cope with. When your hands are dry and chapped, doing simple chores like washing the dishes can be painful and irritating. Unfortunately, you can go through dozens of products before you find the right cream to help heal and prevent chapped hands. That’s why we’ve done the work for you.

I’m no stranger to dry, chapped hands. I have horses at home, which means I’m outside at least four or five times each day, even in the harshest of winter weather. I also wash my hands frequently, which only makes the problem worse. Because of my dry skin, I’ve accumulated a significant collection of lotions and hand creams. Many of them didn’t solve the problem — but some of them did.

The products in this guide are intended for anyone who deals with dry skin in the winter or even year-round. I’ve used many of them myself, and tried to select products that aren’t heavily scented, greasy, or that require frequent applications throughout the day.

To get the best results from these products, apply them according to the brand’s directions. Using these products after washing your hands or showering can get you positive results, and try to make a habit of using your lotion or hand cream before bed for overnight moisturizing.

Here are the best hand creams for dry, chapped hands:

Best hand cream overall: O’Keeffe’s Working Hands Hand Cream
Best for soothing relief: Eucerin Intensive Repair Enriched Lotion
Best organic hand cream: The Naked Bee Moisturizing Hand & Body Lotion
Best for intense repair: Duke Cannon Bloody Knuckles Hand Repair Balm
Best time-saving treatment: NatraCure Gel Moisturizing Gloves

Read on in the slides below to check out our top picks.

The best hand cream for dry, chapped hands overall

O’Keeffe’s Company

Why you’ll love it: O’Keeffe’s Working Hands Hand Cream offers healing and protective properties in a greaseless formula.

For valuable healing paired with protective properties, you can’t go wrong with O’Keeffe’s Working Hands Hand Cream. This hand cream is designed to heal, relieve, and repair extremely dry, cracked hands.

This cream contains paraffin, which helps to establish a barrier that protects your skin from losing water. At the same time, glycerin draws moisture to your skin in order to accelerate the hydration process. The cream is greaseless, yet effectively reduces the rate of evaporation on your hands, helping to restore your hands’ moisture balance while healing your cracked, irritated skin.

Available in both a jar and in a tube, this hand cream is scentless, so you can put it on before leaving the house and no one will know. It’s recommended that you use it multiple times a day, which is easy to do because the cream absorbs so easily into your hands.

The rim of the jar is textured for extra grip, but I’ve found I’ve never needed that texture because the cream doesn’t leave my hands greasy. I have personally had excellent results using this product, and I make a point of applying it after coming in from the barn, before bed, and always after shoveling snow.

O’Keeffe’s Working Hands Hand Cream has a 4.5 out of 5-star rating on Amazon, based on 9,196 reviews.

Bob Duncan of Scrollsaw Woodworking & Crafts attests to the value that this hand cream offers woodworkers, writing, “The salve is the consistency of cold hard butter and it literally melts into your skin. Within a few seconds, the dry skin stops itching and burning, and you can go back to work without worrying about wood or tools slipping out of your grip.”

ToolGuyd also posted a favorable review of this hand cream, writing, “It does relieve dryness. I have only used it a few times and once overnight, but I can definitely tell that it’s working.”

This cream is safe for diabetics to use, and it’s affordable enough to keep a jar in your home, your workplace, and anywhere else where you need protective and healing relief.

Pros: Greaseless, odorless, highly affordable

Cons: Can sting a bit when applied to cracked hands

Buy O’Keeffe’s Working Hands Hand Cream on Amazon for $7.29

The best lotion for soothing relief

Amazon

Why you’ll love it: Formulated for very rough, dry skin, Eucerin Intensive Repair Lotion both gently exfoliates and conditions for healthier skin.

Eucerin Intensive Repair Lotion is a rich, creamy lotion that has long-lasting effects. The triple-acting formula moisturizes, exfoliates, and conditions in order to repair rough, dry skin. The gentle exfoliating nature helps to improve the appearance of dry or rough skin, and the moisturizer offers intense hydration that helps to create smooth, comfortable skin. This fragrance-free formula won’t clog pores.

This is one of my favorite lotions. The pump bottle is quick and easy to use when you’re on the go, and this formula provides soothing relief, even when my hands are at their worst. I particularly like that this lotion is unscented, and it’s easy to massage into my hands.

There is a bit of a film left on my hands after use, but wiping my hands off with a tissue solves the issue. This lotion is versatile, too, and you can use it on your hands, feet, arms, and other problem areas.

Eucerin Intensive Repair Enriched Lotion has a 4.3 out of 5-star rating on Amazon, based on 726 reviews.

Sandy N. wrote, “This lotion is heaven sent! I get very dry skin during the winter to the point of rashes, itching, burning, you name it. This lotion has saved my skin. It’s very thick, so I usually apply at night, but it moisturizes like no other lotion I’ve tried.”

According to Eduardo Neecha, “This Eucerin lotion worked wonders almost immediately —the itching seemed to vanish on contact, and the morning after my first application of it, at least 80% of the redness was gone!”

Pros: Fragrance-free, gentle exfoliating action, won’t clog pores, use on hands, feet, and more

Cons: May increase skin’s sensitivity to the sun and increase the chance of sunburn

Buy Eucerin Intensive Repair Enriched Lotion on Amazon for $9.97

The best organic lotion for dry, chapped hands

Amazon

Why you’ll love it: Certified organic and available in nine different scents, The Naked Bee Moisturizing Hand & Body Lotion softens and hydrates your skin.

The Naked Bee Moisturizing Hand & Body Lotion is made in the US and is certified organic. There’s no worrying about chemicals and irritants in your hand lotion with The Naked Bee. This lotion contains natural ingredients including certified organic sunflower seed oil, glycerin, beeswax, white and green tea leaf extract, arnica extract, honey, and more.

You can choose from delicious scents like the Orange Blossom Honey, Chai Tea, Coconut & Honey, Grapefruit Blossom Honey, and more. There are no dyes or pigment in this lotion.

While the ingredients in this lotion have been carefully selected for their healing and moisturizing effects, the ingredients you won’t find in this lotion are just as important. The Naked Bee makes products without parabens, propylene glycol, mineral oil, or laureth sulfate. Additionally, this company never tests its products on animals.

The Naked Bee Moisturizing Hand & Body Lotion has a 4.2 out of 5-star Amazon rating, based on 2,080 customer reviews.

Amazon reviewer Christine O. wrote, “I am a huge fan of Naked Bee hand and body lotion. This Lavendar hand lotion is rich enough to moisturize but absorbs nicely into your skin…not greasy. This is a true lavendar scent that is light and very pleasant.”

Another Amazon reviewer found this lotion to be the perfect solution for sensitive skin: “LOVE this hand lotion. I love scented lotions but am very sensitive to synthetic fragrance…this product is natural and smells amazing. I have no issues with it. It also absorbs well and doesn’t stay greasy.”

Pros: Available in multiple scents, certified organic, made in the USA

Cons: Some scents are more potent than others

Buy The Naked Bee Moisturizing Hand & Body Lotion on Amazon for $15.61

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