We looked at the top 10 Hand Creams and dug through the reviews from 23 of the most popular review sites including and more. The result is a ranking of the best Hand Creams.
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Prevents Skin From Drying This quick-absorbing, dermatologist-tested brand can help keep your hands soft and smooth all day long.
Prevents Skin From Drying This quick-absorbing, dermatologist-tested brand can help keep your hands soft and smooth all day long.
Takes Years Off Use just a tiny amount of this luxurious retinol cream to see results; it also works well on nails and cuticles.
Takes Years Off Use just a tiny amount of this luxurious retinol cream to see results; it also works well on nails and cuticles.
Luxury in a Bottle You’ll feel like you’ve been to the spa; it’s worth paying a little more for this high-end product with 20% shea butter.
Luxury in a Bottle You’ll feel like you’ve been to the spa; it’s worth paying a little more for this high-end product with 20% shea butter.
Serious and Restorative Care Leave this concentrated cream on overnight and your hands will look and feel restored, soft and supple.
Serious and Restorative Care Leave this concentrated cream on overnight and your hands will look and feel restored, soft and supple.
Our experts reviewed the top 10 Hand Creams and also dug through the reviews from 23 of the most popular review sites including and more. The result is a ranking of the best of the best Hand Creams.
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Gold Bond’s nourishing, hypoallergenic, super-moisturizing hand cream in a 3-ounce bottle is packed with vitamins A, C and E, plus seven moisturizers. It has a non-greasy feel, is fragrance-free and will last through multiple hand washings.
If you don’t take care of your skin properly, it can get dry and itchy — and left untreated, dry skin can crack, flake and bleed. These symptoms can be especially noticeable with your hands, since they’re more exposed to causes like sun damage, harsh soaps, and cold or dry weather during work and daily tasks such as gardening and washing dishes.
Using hand cream regularly will hydrate your skin and create protective barriers to keep needed moisture in. The best ones often include ingredients like shea butter (rich in fatty acids), hyaluronic acid, ceramides, lanolin, jojoba oil and vitamins. Look for hand creams that have at least three of these ingredients.
Good hand cream may be thick or thin, depending on your preference. Thinner creams spread more easily and absorb into the skin more quickly, leaving hands soft and smooth. They’re great in summer, when a lighter-weight lotion is desirable. A thicker cream, which will likely be oil-based, provides extra coverage for people with extra-dry skin and can nourish problem skin in colder temperatures. Thicker creams can also feel really good on your hands.
Fragrant hand creams can be pleasant, but if your skin is sensitive or you have allergies, opt for one that has no scent. And if you find yourself needing to frequently reapply your hand cream, you may want to shop for another brand that will perform better for you.
If you wash your hands a lot, keep a good hand cream by your sink and get a travel-sized version to accompany you when you go out. Or, purchase one that’s meant to stay effective through multiple washings. If you are having excessive trouble with symptoms of dry skin, try a hand cream that works overnight; before bed, apply the lotion and cover your hands with soft gloves. You may have to experiment a bit to find what hand cream routine works the best for you.
The history of lotion-type salves dates back to 3000 B.C.E., with the ancient Sumerians — and later, Egyptians and Greeks. Some of the natural ingredients used then are still found in hand cream products today. The Sumerians preferred tree oils and plants while the Egyptians used honey, milk, herbs and castor oil. Ancient Greeks liked olive oil, beeswax, and mashed-up bread and milk.
One of Pharoah Hatshepsut of Egypt’s flacons is an early example of a vessel that held a skin care lotion; it was rumored that she had psoriasis or eczema, and researchers believe there was skin disease in her family. The bottle reportedly contained fats, palm oil, benzopyrene and nutmeg apple oil. Benzopyrene is a highly toxic carcinogen, and using it may have caused her death from cancer.
Danielle Smyth is a writer and content marketing expert based in New York. She has been writing on business and finance, home and garden, DIY, travel and tourism, and a variety of other topics for over a decade, and she holds a Master of Science in Publishing from Pace University. Danielle loves working on product reviews and helping others find the highest quality items and the best values, particularly in the beauty space, where every purchase is deeply personal and matters a great deal.
DWYM simplifies the research process by aggregating the reviews of the top product review sites. The result is the DWYM Score which represents the overall true rating of a product based upon a 1-10 scale.
For the Hand Cream category, we analyzed 23 of the most popular reviews including reviews from and more. The result is a ranking of the best Hand Creams.