Since this came up tangentially in the
Everything You Always Wanted To Know ... thread, I thought I'd open it up into its own post:
How do you look after hands that are shredded/scraped/blistered, and avoid having your climbing hampered by a skin shortage?
For what it's worth, my chief weapons are
fear, surprise, and a fanatical devotion to The Dawes:
*Climb On Bar or Elizabeth Arden Eight Hour Cream. I haven't picked a favourite yet; in my experience, either works very well for healing blisters and scrapes.
(There are various products on the market, especially in the US; what you want is a mildly antiseptic grease or goop, that will help heal the skin without softening it in the way that a water-based lotion can.)
The latter is a known trick of the trade for boulderers, and it never ceases to amuse me that I can have chats with hardcore rugged climbing boys about Elizabeth Arden.
*Finger tape! Very handy for covering up blisters, flappers, and abraded or frayed bits.
*Those Ped-Egg microplane grater things sold for shaving dead skin from your feet. Yes, it's disgusting (in a very satisfying way), but they're perfect for smoothing down callouses that have become hard or ridged, so you avoid them ripping off or having blisters develop underneath them, without losing the toughness of the skin.
What works for you?
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