I know how you feel. My kids had a cold last week and I was trying to finish a cake. Pipe a couple of letters, wipe a nose, wash hands, repeat, repeat, repeat... 
A good, easy way to give them a nice treatment is to slather them in a thick lotion or petroleum jelly, wrap them in plastic wrap, then wrap them in a heating pad or hot towel for 10-15 minutes.
Hope your hands are better soon!
I know exactly how you feel. I do cakes every weekend and I have 2 small children so I seem to be washing my hands every 2 minutes due to my own fears of cntamination. Great for the clients not so good for my already very dry hands. I just moisturize for the rest of the week and start all over again on the weekend. If they are really bothering me I will wear gloves when I decorate then just change the gloves repeatedly.
I made my son's groom cake and his brides cake last week, and OMG the back of my hands hurt so much from washing them so many times. I wanted to cry every time I hit them on something or had to put them under the hot water to wash the dishes. They were actually cracking and had turned a deep purplish-red color by the time I was finished. Im so glad the wedding's over and my hands can now heal.
This is interesting. I had the same thing happen for three weekends in a row while I was caking. I figured it was an allergic reaction to something I was using. Since then, I have been taking 1 benadryl before caking I haven't had the problem since. Maybe mine was an allergic reaction.
jmr531 - that's a really good idea. If that happens again I will give that a go.
Yes yes, my hands were so bad this last cake I just made that I was desperately rubbing all kinds of things- butter, olive oil, and I may have even slathered a bit of crisco when I was already into it. When I took breaks, hand lotion. More at night before bed. I agree- olive oil is probably best, or at least better than crisco. Another possibility is vitamin e oil if you have a bottle.
My hands dont get as chapped as some of yours sound. They just crack on the tips of my fingers at the edge of the nail bed. Dang it hurts! I had a huge wedding two weeks ago and both my thumbs and first fingers cracked so I could hardly touch or pick up anything. Next time I am going to try putting on the rubber gloves every time I wash a dish. Slows me down though.
I just remembered that I have a hand treatment set by Mary Kay called Satin Hands. It does wonders on dry, hard working hands. First you rub a thick gel on then rub a scrub over that to remove dead skin. Then wash with the special soap and moisturize. I don't know if that will help during actual baking or decorating but maybe it would help at the end of each day. I am going to try it now!
I love the Olay Hand renewal dish soap from Dawn. My hands don't get nearly as dry as they did before I started using it.
While handling food I rub a little olive oil on my hands then after washing for the last time I use J.R. Watkin Apothecary Lemon Crean hand lotion. I am addicted to that stuff, It smells just like lemon cake.
If my hands get really dry I use
Neutrogena Norwegian Formula Hand Cream It is the BEST for really chapped hands , It is what I used for my tattoos and it helped to speed up the healing time.
I use Dawn for my dishes because I feel it's the best at cleaning my things when i do my sugarshack's recipe.. but
I have chapped hands and it;s NOT because of the dawn... i know that for a fact...
everytime I do a figure or use fondant and/or gumpaste to model somwthing or to make a flower and I don't wear latex gloves... it's like the sugar paste makes my hands chapped... and it's not a little bit... it's really bad... sometimes my skin rips open and I bleed... it's painful...
Could I be allergic to sugarpaste?!?!?!
I now use latex gloves most times... but as u know there are times when u just can't use them, so I end up paying the price for it...
I hope someone has an answer out there...
If you can sleep with gloves on, then this is what you do.
Find some cotton gloves that fit your hands, Hobby Lobby is now carrying the things in the W/candy aisle.
If you can find better, god bless.
Now slather your hands with your favorite hand cream or vaseline. V works best.
Work it in really well, if you used Vaseline, you might have work harder or scrape the excess off.
Now stick your hands in the gloves and go to sleep.
This also works on icky heels and ugly toes, you just need cotton socks.
Certain things do draw the moisture out of your hands... working with a lot of paper, or dirt (ie. gardening) will dry your hands our really quick, so maybe the sugarpaste works the same way, dalis4joe. You might want to check out the allergy angle, though. Maybe try taking a Benadryl before you start, like csorrell71 mentioned.
Also, I have eczema, and the best thing I've found, short of my steroid cream, is Camille Beckman's glycerine hand therapy. I used to be able to find it in the Hallmark's around here, but mine quit carrying it (I believe the individual franchise owners decide what to carry, though, so you might still be able to find it at yours), and last time I bought some I got it at the hospital gift shop. They have a store locator on their website...
http://www.camillebeckman.com/
When your hands start cracking, some lotions sting a lot. This one doesn't sting, at least not until your hands get really, REALLY bad. Also, it comes in a good variety of scents. Most heavy duty lotions I've found smell pretty awful, so it's nice to be able to have one that works really well that you like the smell of.
if you don't mind sleeping with gloves you can load your hand with vaseline i do put my socks on after i do my pedicure. and i also like the blue and white tube called moisture therapy intense from avon, and the chap stick is great to no taste, i wish i could send all of you my balm i make, it's all natural, not greasy, and is great for burns, which i didn't know until i burned my finger and thought can't hurt to try it, took the sting right out i had a burn that didn't even blister went right to red, put it on and when it began to look like it was going to form a calus sp i just kept putting it on and completely went away, only thing is your hand are cracking, (mine did when i was a kid, you might want to put a triple antibiotic on for a few days,
Aloe or an aloe-based lotion. Aloe is a natural healing element that actually ABSORBS into the skin to get down into the skin to heal it, unlike a lot of products that just sit on top of your skin. (I really hate a cheap lotion that you have to rub and rub and rub and rub and then finally wipe your hands off on a paper towel! The lotion is doing me no good if it's just sitting on top of my skin ... I need it to be absorbed.)
During one of my fraternity caterings, my hands got really chapped bad. Not only was I working in a kitchen for 15 hours straight, but it was also sub-zero weather, which contributed. Hands were "almost" to the point of cracked/bleeding.
My aloe cured the chapped hands in under 48 hours. Totally back to normal.
Thank you all for your replies and wonderful suggestions!!
I'm going to find myself a good dish soap (usually use the dishwasher but find I have been washing more items by hand as I need them)
Next will be a good lotion & some gloves!!
Thank you again!
I read in an online article that Ameda Lansinoh Lanolin Nipple Cream, sold for breast feeding mothers, was a moisturizing "secret of the stars." Because it's used for mothers nursing babies, it's flavorless and foodsafe. It has a texture like really thick Vaseline, you have to warm it between your hands as you rub it on, but once it's on it lasts through a couple of handwashings. (It might even create enough of a barrier to protect your hands from gumpaste, dalis4joe.)
It's available in the baby aisle of the grocery store. The downside (other than the texture) is that it costs about $8/tube. I've had my tube for almost a year though.
Well i don't know about the stuff for nursing moms. But when my hands are really bad i buy bag balm it comes in a tin and is like a medicated Vaseline and is made to use on cows teats so that they don't crack and bleed.
For regular hand cream i use bath and body works Look Ma New Hands. Its in a blue package and is a great hand lotion smells good too. It does run $12 a tube but if you pick it up on sale sometimes its 2 for one. This is what my son uses too now that he is washing dishes at a local restaurant
Oh, I forgot about bag balm. Another great foodsafe solution.
And the "Look Ma New Hands" is awesome too. One of the great things about it is it exfoliates and moisturizes, getting rid of the dry, flaky skin. My family thinks I'm a little OCD about food preparation, but people with visibly dry hands have to glove-up in my kitchen for certain jobs.
EUCIRIN!!!! It is a thick cream sold in a tub container (they have a pump kind but it is as good!!). I buy the generic and it is AMAZING... so much better than vaseline, bag balm, and udder balm. I rub it all over my hands and wrists every night before I go to bed. I've used the other products, but my hands were still dry and cracking, and sometimes even bleeding. After 2 nights with the Eucirin, they were awesome!
I don't know if this is a contributing factor, most powdered sugar has cornstarch in it. I guess it could have a drying effect also. Also when you wash your hands watch out for the hot water that will really dry out your hands.
I have hand dermatitis and caking can be REALLLLY painful sometimes! I noticed it seems worse when I use cornstarch and/or powdered sugar. I did some reading and you CAN actually be allergic to that stuff. It sure seems like I am, with the way my hands react.
It is funny to see this post right now, because this just happened to me the weekend of the tenth, I had a lot of cakes and my hands were in and out of dishwater so much, that they got so red and raw that I had to go buy some gloves to wear when I washed the dishes. I had never had that happen before. I also use Dawn and always have so I couldn't figure out why this happened this time. When I was all done I put eucerin on my hands and I have these disposable plastic gloves that I wore to bed, and that really helped. I know the bottle Dawn that I have says ultra concentrated so I didn't know if that was the reason or if it always says that and I just didn't pay attention to it before.
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