Skin Care
Firstly please don't distress, I have not taken leave of my senses nor have you stumbled across some long winded makeup article.
I want to discuss SKINCARE, hands in particular. There are 2 things you will always find in a chefs box, knife roll or whatever it is you drag your tools to work in. A) hand cream, B) Bepanthem. The later I won't go into any detail as this is family literature (but let's just say the cornflour theory is really just that). The former is something many won't admit too and I understand why, there were times I would have denied it too.
Chefs are fundamentally underpaid rockstars, or at least we think so. The bravado and lack of sleep somehow make us feel untouchable. We work extremely long hours in very hot conditions, under immense pressure to deliver at breakneck speed the perfect item, on time, every time.
I was 20, I was trying to gain acceptance of my peers and show that I was a badass at a well-known restaurant when a very well know chef was running the place … it wasn’t so much an initiation, but a gastro tray was heated over a flame and then burnt on the forearm as many times as you could manage or the tray became cold… — Lerrico Messina
Personal hygiene goes without saying, you need to be clean and sanitary. Washing your hands in excess of 30 times a shift is normal. Using industrial soap, then sanitizer, over and over again, day in and day out. It enables your skin to resemble that of a pair of crocodile skin loafers.
For those who have never worked in a kitchen before, this COVID-19 malarkey with washing your hands more often and for longer is nothing new to chefs. So I can guarantee that your hands are feeling more and more like those loafers.
Enter stage left — Ashley. Someone who has always been a maniac when it comes to skincare. She was appalled at the state of my hands when we first met. Basically I am a “work in progress”. Fast forward a few years and I have been using a hand cream from a company called Tropic. It is one of those nobody knows brand that you can only buy from someone you know. Thankfully I know someone who has access to this stuff. It is called Superfood Hand Therapy.
It has honestly changed my hands. It is all organic, I know that is a thing for some people. It also only uses natural ingredients, so NO chemicals. The later I had not put much thought in to before. But when you actually stop and look at what we expose our hands too (and the rest of our bodies) the number of chemicals our hands come into contact with is huge. From hand soaps, deodorant, face wash, shampoo, SANITIZER(this is the bastard) & the list goes on. So I thought, ok that is a good thing, it is one less thing with chemicals in to worry about but does it pass the test. For me, a good hand cream must be 2 things.
NOT OILY — nothing worse than applying a cream to your hands and rubbing and rubbing and rubbing as if you are hoping a genie would appear. Still not convinced if any of it has actually penetrated your skin. This stuf just soaks in to your hands and makes them feel hydrated from the get go. NO OILY HANDS. That is a win.
NO PUNGENT FRAGRANCE — smelling like cheap toilet spray for hours on end or you nan’s potpourri basket she kept on the side table to ward off ghastly smells, if only she knew it was the basket itself. This cream has a slight papaya smell which is not offensive as I thought it would be.
Look at these soft paws…
All in all this hand cream has made a huge difference to my hands. They honestly have been transformed by this cream.
Turns out Ash is quite smart. I would never have used a whole new range of Organic, Chemical Free nonsense in the past. But but getting me hooked on a good hand cream i was far more open to try the other things. They have a whole range of fantastic products, I have since started using the shampoo, face wash and I will stop there before this becomes a long winded makeup article.
If any of you want to hear about the long winded article please drop me a message or comment below and I will be happy to talk you through it.
