What is one thing you can’t live without?

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moisturized AF. One thing I cannot live without: hand lotion. At some point, around age eight or nine I think, I developed an addiction to hand lotion, and now, almost thirty years later, it’s still going strong.

My mother always kept a big pump bottle of it on the counter, and I’d see her apply it after doing things like washing her hands or washing dishes. (My childhood home was a log cabin that didn’t have a dishwasher.) Why?, I asked her one time. What is that for? Why do you do that? She replied that it helped with that dry sensation after your hands have been wet. That it cured the pruney-fingers you always get after a bath.

I hated pruney fingers! (And still do! Pruney fingers and toes are the worst feeling ever!) This was a sensation that always drove me mad. I hated how the only way to alleviate it was to wet your hands again, which only inevitably prolonged the actual pruney symptoms. I always hated that feeling, after a bath or after washing and drying my hands; it was like fingernails on a chalkboard to me. So, I thought, maybe I’d try this lotion thing.

There was no looking back. My whole life, I have needed to have a bottle or tube of lotion somewhere on my person or within reach at all times. Immediately after a shower or anything that gets my hands wet, I must moisturize.

And in recent years I’ve even become the same way about lips and feet. Now the lips require constant ChapStick and the feet require moisturization too, especially after cleaning. I cannot stand the feeling of dry lips or dry feet. Parched feet in socks — ugh! It’s like having fleas all over me, even under my skin, hopping around in my very bloodstream.

So, I keep three big pump bottles in my house (not counting my collection of perfumed body creams, which are for legs and body only because, delicious as they are, they dry out too quickly for the hands and feet, which are obviously more sensitive and therefore thirstier), and one large tube in my handbag. I think I probably apply lotion upwards of twenty times a day (and that’s not even counting my facial moisturizer).

And it can’t be just any lotion. It can’t be too thin and perfumey like Bath & Body Works’s lotions (not to be confused with their aforementioned body creams, which I love), or too watery and light like Cetaphil, but it also can’t be ultra-thick and sticky like Aquaphor or too dry like O’Keefe’s. (The only time I used O’Keefe’s was when I was a dog groomer, and my hands were constantly in and out of dog bathwater, so my regular lotion could no longer keep up; it is so cakey and greasy and feels gross, but sure does heal cracked skin.)

Your all purpose hand lotion needn’t be, in fact shouldn’t be, too fancy. Vaseline Intensive Care or good old Suave Advanced Healing are my go-tos for the perfect texture, thickness, quick absorption, and lasting effect. I also love Jergens with its nostalgic cherry-almond fragrance. (No, I’m not getting paid for this.)

I literally don’t understand people who don’t need to obsessively moisturize. Sometimes I see someone in the wild with visibly dry, whitish skin on their knuckles, and I have to suppress a horrified gasp: why would you let it get like that?! Don’t you moisturize?! How do you live like this?

My hands may not be pretty — I have these huge, gangly, masculine hands with thick fingers, scarred knuckles, and broad, squarish nails that are short and shredded from constant anxious picking and usually painted a chipping black; for the life of me, I cannot keep them looking nice; but damn, if but they aren’t the softest, smoothest, most moisturized hands you’ve ever met.

Could I live without hand lotion? I guess. Technically. One year, I gave up hand lotion for Lent. — Terrible idea. I survived, but I’m still not sure why I did that, and will never do it again. I got no spiritual benefit, just dry hands and misery. (And then, when the dry finger skin snags on a microfiber cloth — screaming, crying, throwing up, etc.) And for what? Just senseless self-torture. That’s not spiritual. I have come to think that some addictions are actually okay.

Lotion is the least harmful and least embarrassing of all my little addictions, anyway — which is why I don’t hesitate to rattle off this little post about it. In fact, just talking about this has made me need to moisturize. Anyone else? Where are my fellow obsessive moisturizers at? Am I right or am I right?