The (kinda long) story of Butter Bits
There comes a time in everyones' life when you look at your hands and you think to yourself.. " How old am I?!"
And then remembering that "hands" weren't really part of your skin routine, they were at best an afterthought. If you really think about it, your hands have done more work than any other part of your body with less care and consideration than (almost) all other parts of your body. That could be considered abuse!
I, myself, had been very bad. I had carelessly exposed my hands to chemicals followed by excessive hand washing using "shop" soap, the most drying kind of all soaps, for years. As an industrial designer, my hands came in contact with harmful substances, some of which, like rubbing alcohol, are extremely drying. Gardening is also my jam and all that playing in the backyard isn't ideal for sensitive compromised skin.
I'm also a bit of a klutz and constantly stab myself with my tools. Like a tomboy, I have cuts and bruises everywhere that leave scars and discolorations and are not cute, like they would be on a tomboy.
Not wearing sunblock on my hands made it all worse; it darkened scars and inflamed my skin even further. I could have really hurt someone with my cuticles. The point of this story is that my hands looked ancient and...
I didn't like it.
I didn't know this at the time but harmful products and chemicals overwhelm skin’s natural detoxing capability. As a result, the skin doesn't bind-in moisture and its effectiveness as a protective barrier decreases.
And that's exaclty what happened.
I noticed dryness led to more cuts from cracks + became inflamed.
My skin even felt more sensitive and reacted more quickly to temperature changes and chemicals.
At 45, I'm no spring chicken.
I know my skin needs more TLC than before, especially since I never took care of the skin on my hands like the way I did my face. ( and neck! don't forget the neck! ).
I got ready for battle.
I made sure to have hand lotion or hand cream on me at all times. One in each purse or bag, one by the sink, one by my computer desk, one by the bed, one in the car... you get the point.
I had to make it as convenient as possible to rub this stuff on, wherever I was and as frequently as possible.
But no matter how many times I put lotion on my hands, they would feel dry again after an hour.
Ain't nobody got time for that!
I have since tried every tube of hand cream (including a $130 tube of hand cream, thinking if it costs more, it'll work better, right??
They didn't.
My hands were always temporarily relieved, but the hangnails, rough cuticles and deep lines would reappear.
And then Covid-19, along with obsessive hand washing and sanitizing, arrived
All the hand washing and sanitizing that came with the Covid-19 Pandemic made my dry skin problems even worse!
The alcohol in hand sanitizers is one of the most drying ingredients there is.
With my already compromised skin, I was now even more at risk of the virus sneaking in through one of the tiny cracks or tears in my dry skin. Yikes! Mostly because not touching everything in the store is really hard for me.
That's when I discovered lotion bars.
The ultra moisturizing butters and oils covered and protected my hands like a glove.
I was obsessed!
I also didn't have to worry about what to do with all the (almost) empty plastic tubes my expensive creams came in. I always cut the plastic tubes open anyway to get to the last little bit left at the bottom of the tube. It feels like a rescue mission..
Frugalness aside, most cosmetic and personal care packaging is rarely recyclable.
Especially, those multi-layered plastic lotion tubes that can't even be reused. I'm sure I'm stating the obvious when I say that storing anything in plastic is not a good idea.
It's a bad one.
Our skin is our largest organ.
Rubbing toxic chemicals that leach from the plastic packaging into the product onto our skin is harmful, especially in the long term.
Personally, I don't want to deal with packaging, I just want my product.
When the product is done, I expect the packaging to disappear as well.
There's no question that our recycling system is broken. If something can be recycled, we send it to 3rd world countries, who have recently been sending it right back to us. Imagine all that energy