Hand care advice

[allochthonous]

So I have recently got back into climbing, and it's great, and I have a group of friends who I've managed to get hooked on it as well, and I'm saving up for a climbing holiday later in the year, and it's all wonderful. Except that I appear to be steadily losing the skin on the inside of my fingers. Last time I realised that I had ripped all of the skin off the bottom third of my fingers on my left hand and was bleeding (nice). I never ran into this problem when I climbed before, and I guess it's just because I've been out of the game for a while, but is there anything I can do until my hands harden up? Loads of lotion? No lotion? Just tape it up? It's not particularly painful, but I don't want the scrapes to get infected. If you climb regularly, do you just expect calluses? Or do everything to avoid them?

Comments

[allochthonous]

Thanks so much for the detailed reply! Alas, I am not immediately able to access either Climb On or EA (though I will hopefully be able to grab the latter at duty-free next time I fly), but will see what I can find in the way of lotions that aren't too watery and for the moment keep taping. Thanks also for the link to the other post - so many great resources in this community.

[rydra_wong]

In the meantime, something like plain shea butter would work pretty well, if you can get hold of that (I have no idea what might or might not be available in Georgia).