Dress Down Moms

Madge and her followers tell us that Palmolive gives us soft hands while we do dishes. Click here to watch them. I would like to tell everyone that I have them figured out.

My hands are not perfectly manicured and soft like they show us in the commercial. In fact, the opposite is true. Take a look-

Here we see dish-pan hands at their finest. The nails are split, uneven, brittle. My skin is dry, chapped, and chafing. And I am in my Palmolive filled sink several times a day. Mine are not like the French-manicured hand models.

I even use the new Pure and Clear, Sparkling Fresh Ultra Palmolive dish soap! The phosphate free soap that contains no unnecessary chemicals, no heavy fragrances, non-irritating dyes, and biodegradable cleaning ingredients. If anything, you would think that this natural soap would be the stuff to keep my hands soft and beautiful.

Every time I put my hands in another full sink of soap and sippy cups, I can feel the moisture being sucked right out. They itch, burn, and have lost all suppleness. They are like sandpaper. I can see my fingers wrinkling and it's not the water-raisin syndrome either. My nails chip on the princess dishes, break off, and then scratch the Wee Ladies every time I help them get dressed, brush their teeth and hair, or put on their coats. They are constantly complaining that I poke and scratch them. "Owwww! Mom, you scratched me!" and "Mom! You poked me in the cheek! That hurt!" and "Ouch, Mom! Cut your nails!"

I do put moisturizer on occasionally, but it gets soaked up in milli-seconds, like water gets sucked up instantly in desert stricken soil. My hands look like caked, cracked mud.

And so I call the bluff of the ladies who "soak in it." And I know Posh Spice, Victoria Beckham, has learned their tricks too.

They all soak in moisturizer at night. With gloves covering and protecting their ten lovely, long, wrinkle-free, baby soft fingers.

As written at FemaleFirst, "Victoria Beckham has finally revealed her secret to looking good... she wears socks and gloves in bed to keep her skin looking young.

Posh covers her hands and feet with moisturising cream every night and then puts white cotton gloves and thick socks, as part of her bedtime ritual.

The former Spice girl said: "I put really thick foot lotion on with socks before I go to sleep. I also use thick hand cream with gloves at the same time."

I wonder what David Beckham thinks about his wife lying beside him slathered in cream? It could go either way.

Maybe I should take a trip to Shopper's Drug Mart, buy myself a pair of white cotton gloves, and go for the Extra Strength Gold Bond.

I know I would be encouraged by Madge to have a skin care routine for my hands. The three steps to good skin is to cleanse, moisturize, and protect. I have part one down perfectly. Step two is inconsistent. Step 3 is non-existent as I don't use a sunscreen on my hands everyday. It would all just get washed off in the Palmolive anyway.

I have work to do. I just figured that my hands would stay soft because that is what they tell us Palmolive dish soap will do, but also since my hands are immersed in water, doesn't osmosis play a role here?

Maybe it is not the Palmolive entirely. Maybe it is partly dehydration, vitamin-depletion, and over-caffeination to blame. I need to accept more responsibility. I can't rely solely on dish soap to keep my hands in an ultimate state of gorgeousness...it would be nice if they could even come close to being presentable.