Laura Kennedy: I’ve tried and tested the best winter hand creams

Hand cream is an undervalued beauty product. Or rather, it is until you need it. Yes – it is generally pretty unglamorous (though there are exceptions as you will see below) and brands spend their time and marketing budgets trying to rid hand cream of its slightly drab image, as a sort of hybrid between pseudo-medicament and discomfort preventative. However, it can be much more, and we take our hands for granted – subjecting them to constant abuse and work.

When hands get dry, chapped or tight, we suddenly stop mindlessly assaulting our most-used tools and start to feel desperately uncomfortable. That sensation of wearing a pair of itchy, undersized gloves that you can’t take off is very common at this time of year and, despite its unpleasantness, easily remedied. The solution doesn’t have to be awful either. The days of hand creams that wear like cling film and smell like an apothecary’s undersink cupboard are gone.

VOYA Handy to Have Reparative Hand Lotion (€19 at voya.ie) is a lovely Irish option. Fans of Sarah Breen and Emer McLysaght's Aisling and the City may recognise VOYA hand cream as the one Aisling uses on her fancy business-class flight to New York. It's luxuriant and effective with a fresh, clean scent reminiscent of spas, and contains soothing and nourishing organic Irish seaweed extract.

For chapped hands that have already reached the stinging stage and won’t tolerate scent, Eucerin Urea Hand Cream (€11 at pharmacies nationwide) is perfect. Mine lives by my bed and when I remember to apply it every night, it sees my hands comfortably through the frosty season, helping to maintain my skin’s barrier and enable it to protect itself. It’s rich enough to provide instant comfort but not to get in your way as you use your hands.

Ross O’Carroll-Kelly: ‘I can lie – very easily – but not when it comes to rugby’

---

About Adam: The virtual hug that went around the world

---

A stroll through time in Glasnevin cemetery

---

Explore Ireland in November: From sweet dreams to flying fantasies

---

If you prefer a denser texture, The Body Shop Hemp Hand Protector (€19 at The Body Shop stores nationwide) provides just that. Particularly loved by a carpenter I know who works constantly with his hands, this rich hand cream smells mildly of snapped twigs and fresh sawdust – it’s softly delicious. The cream isn’t slimy but does leave a slight residue, so I apply it to the back of one hand and then rub the backs of both hands together if I am using it during the day when I need my palms product-free.

Chanel La Crème Main Texture Riche (€56 at Brown Thomas) is a hand cream I have written about before, and no doubt will again. Undeniably a luxury buy (it is never necessary to spend this sort of money on a hand cream), it is nonetheless perfect. From the impossibly elegant, touchable egg-shaped packaging to the meltingly smooth, non-sticky formula that belies the intense moisturisation it offers. I would happily use it every day of my life. This hand cream looks and smells like pure luxury, but performs with precisely the sort of instantaneously comforting and nourishing efficiency you want from the best hand creams.

Product of the Week

Tom Ford Lost Cherry Lip Colour in Scarlet Rouge (€51 at Brown Thomas)