I suffer regularly from  the skin on my fingers cracking. the cracks are small but very painful and take ages to heal. I use hand cream on them but due to my job as a dog groomer my hands are constantly wet. I hate wearing rubber gloves and anyway water tends to splash and ends up inside the glove. Does anyone have any suggestions that may help prevent the cracks or to help them heal more quickly. I have had a crack on my thumb now for a week and it is still no better. Made worse because I keep catching and bumping it

Try Calendula Skin Salve for a hand cream. For deeper individual cracks I use Calendula ointment and cover with a plaster at night to prevent the ointment rubbing off and to allow it to soak well into the crack. For lots of small cracks I apply the ointment and then wear thin protective gloves overnight. Works a treat and splits and cracks quickly heal from the bottom.

Try applying the ointment liberally and then put on cotton gloves under the rubber gloves, put elastic around the cuffs to keep the water out.

Have you tried some tighter gloves like the ones you get with some hair dye products?

I can't help with the sore cracked skin that you have at the moment and don't know of any new products available as I only ever use hand cream, but obviously it is a problem as you can not avoid water and any hand cream will just come off sooooo........ an 'old school' product to seal your hands from water damage is LARD, rubbed over your hands it offers the longest and best protection against water, and does not come off, you couldn't use that alone as it would not fit in with dog grooming, but perhaps you could put it on and then glove up too, wiping your hands with a paper towel afterwards, if no-one comes up with anything more modern it may be worth a try. :-)

My mum suffers terribly with cracked fingers and quite by chance we spotted something in a local garden centre it's called working hands and its by o.keeffe (I think that's how it's spelt) its quite expensive but it's the best cream my mum has ever tried.  She's had lots of creams and lotions even some from the doctors and nothing has worked but this is GOOD. 

One of the best creams I have used for severe cracks is udder cream that is sold for treating cracked teats in cows. It was brilliant and I used to buy it from a country store that sold farm supplies but am sure it could be found by an internet search. I can't remember what it was called but it healed the cracks very quickly.

thanks. some great suggestion. will start testing and see what helps

If you google 'how to heal cracked finger tips' there's some really useful hints out there but suffice to say what you need to do is reduce moisture loss in the skin of your hands and fingers, hard to believe I know when your hands are constantly in water but it is the evaporation of the water that causes your skin to shrivel and split, it's also more common in winter.

The moment a crack starts to appear totally cover the crack in a good heavy grease, vaseline, calendula, lard you name it, then cover the cut with a plaster and keep doing this.

The crack will start to close up as it is not able to lose moisture as you've sealed it with grease, it takes about 4/5 days.

As a maintenance as you have your hands in lots of water it would be a good idea to grease your hands then wear very thin cotton gloves with thin rubber gloves over for working, if you can't work like this then keep your hands greased at night and put the cotton gloves on just at bed time.

Hope your poor fingers feel better soon

My partner uses Barrier cream at work. you can get waterproof barrier cream, might be worth a try.
I get the same in the winter due to working outside and just apply had cream everytime I wash my hands.
Lea :)

I do use barrier cream but it doesn't seem to help. I think the shampoos just wash it off. I do try to use handcream when I dry my hands but I have to be careful not to put much on as I don't want to send the dogs back with grease marks.

I am obsessed with hand washing and it damages my skin which is very sensitive , I can't use moisturisers as they hurt my skin .
The doctor prescribes me Dermovate ointment and if you apply a thin layer a couple of times a day and before bed it helps heal the cracks in no time . I know how painful they are sometimes you can't even bend your fingers at all. I would ask the dr for the ointment I get it really will help you :)

As a nurse I was constantly washing my hands even after using alcohol gel because they didn't feel clean, there was hand cream available in the latter years but again my hands didn't feel clean so my routine was to apply a liberal covering of hand cream,something thick not watery,Garnier Hand Glove was nice, at bed time and let it soak in this kept my hands free of any cracks.

I get really bad hands in the Winter time when I'm at work in the grooming salon, I use Hemp hand cream from The Body Shop, expensive but such a godsend!

The hemp cream is really good well worth the money not everyone likes the smell but I felt it was worth it

I was just about to say that.  Vaseline, lard and the likes are great but it gets into the coat and then you need to re-wash with pure soap to clean it off!!lol
I, too, suffer from this and am suffering quite bad at the minute.  I came across O'keefes working hands by accident.  It was in the bargain bin for a quid at Tescos a few weeks ago so I thought I would give it a try.  Magic stuff!! No joke.  And I've had steroid cream and everything for this.  By far the best.  And it's non-greasy so you can use it while grooming and nothing goes into the coat. 
I slather that on then a pair of waterproof gloves with a hairbobble holding them closed then a pair of neoprene gloves over the top to grip the coat.

I use flexitol on my feet ( never wear socks and walk around in bare feet all year)and it is brilliant.

I also use Waitrose baby bottom butter afterwards and the combination of both of those keep my hands very soft and supple :-)

Yes I really rate the hemp cream too

I also use the thin medical type gloves under other gloves in the winter to prevent my hands from getting too wet as my knuckles get sore and split.  I find that I can perform most dog tasks wearing these, clipping nails, cleaning ears, bathing etc but as others have said it does help to seal the wrists with a band of some sort.

Cotton gloves worn at night, over hand cream, are really effective too.  You can get the gloves, and socks, from the Body Shop although I'm sure other places sell them too and presumably any cotton glove would work

Elizabeth Arden 8 hour cream (like an ointment) is my highly recommended miracle cure. it fixed so many skin problems on my face but I've also discovered it works amazingly on dry skin and i sometimes use it overnight on my hands as they get very cracked and sore in this weather. I wake up in the morning and they are silky smooth again. It isnt the cheapest but by far the best thing i have ever used. HTH

also neutrogena hand cream is very good.

Sheila

http://www.bagbalm.com/

I worked outside and with livestock most of my younger life, hands in and out of water cold and dirty. the best cream I found was "Coopers Dairy Ointment" and 30 years on I am still using it, (not from the same tub though!) It is greasy but easilly absorbed into the skin, only a little needs to be used, no cracked or sore hands excellent for dry heels it is slightly antiseptic. I have never found any of the "human" creams to be any good! "Coopers Dairy Ointment" can be purchased from agricultural stores or similar. Don't be fobed off with "Udder cream"
Well worth a try.

I've used udder cream and found it really good.

I used to smear my horses legs from midway between his knees and to the top of his hooves every morning to keep the mud off him. It was a great barrier cream. His skin was always bone dry and pure white under a layer of mud.

And I used to have lovely soft hands!

I used an "udder cream" once, it smelt and looked like Germoline it didn't appear to be grease based and it did no good at all, so I just stick to the one I know which is the Coopers one. I'm sure there are other good ones out there but they do need to be Lanoline or grease based to be effective.:)

Ah poor you, that is no fun. Apart from the udder ointments and o'keefes (going to look for that myself!), I use lansinoh - it's pure lanolin. It's specifically for human skin and has sorted out my hands and my 4 year olds chapped red raw bottom lip *ouch* 

When my 3rd baby was new born she became poorly and was admitted to hospital, she was on a ventilator which meant the slight nappy rash she had became so much worse and was red raw because we couldnt change her as easily. Small holes were appearing in her skin 8-O.  We (nurses and I) tried EVERY cream under the sun and found lansinoh a bit of a magic cream to provide a barrier between the raw skin and what babies produce in their nappies!  sudocrem (good antiseptic cream) is what I use on her now and any sign of a red bum - one dose of sudocrem sorts it out :-).

HTH

Lansinoh; Just googled it, its "Nipple cream" I can't put that on my hands !!!
Ha ha good for you, well if it works then that's brilliant and I'm sure it does. :)

ha ha!  yes thats what lansinoh is specifically designed for, like udder cream for cows, but lanolin is lanolin is lanolin ;-)