A gardener’s skin takes a beating. The sun. The soil. The work.

While sunscreen applied to the face, arms, legs and hands goes a long way in protecting against the sun’s harmful rays, even the best pair of gardening gloves sometimes falls short in buffering against the harshness of gardening tasks. As summer wanes and thoughts turn to the dry months of winter, many of us still must contend with chapped, cracked hands that bring discomfort on a daily basis.

Well, thanks to an herbalist friend, who has been for a number of years desperate to improve the condition of the skin on my hands, there’s an easy-to-prepare herbal hand cream that promises to seriously reduce the level of discomfort one must endure over the autumn and winter months. She has passed on this simple recipe – a healing concoction, one which includes the curative ingredients of calendula and vitamin E – that I highly recommend you try! Applied at the end of the day, you’ll notice significant results (mainly softer skin) pretty quickly.

The following formulation makes a small amount of cream, so I recommend doubling or tripling the recipe if you’re serious about moisturizing those hands.

To make about 4 ounces of the herbal hand cream, you’ll need a few things from the kitchen: a small pot, a double boiler, a wire whisk and a glass jar with a lid.

You’ll need:

2 tablespoons water infused with calendula petals

3 tablespoons beeswax

2 ounces lanolin

5 tablespoons almond or olive oil

1 capsule vitamin E

10 drops essential oil, if scent is desired

If you don’t have any on hand, you’ll need to shop at a pharmacy or natural foods store to purchase beeswax, anhydrous lanolin and vitamin E capsules. You’ll need to dry calendula petals from the garden. If you haven’t grown calendula, you may also find dried petals at a natural food store. If they don’t have them in stock, ask if they can special order them for you. Calendula petals have very little fragrance, so if you’d like to scent your hand cream, purchase essential oil of any desirable scent. Rose, lavender or other floral scents are most popular.

First, prepare an infusion of calendula by crushing 1/4 cup of the dried petals in 1/4 cup of water. Bring the mixture to a boil in your small pot, then turn the burner off and allow the mixture to steep until cool. Strain the petals from the liquid and reserve 2 tablespoons of the liquid for your cream.

Next, melt the 3 tablespoons of beeswax and 2 ounces of lanolin in the double boiler. When fully melted, remove the top of the double boiler and whisk the calendula infusion into the beeswax-lanolin mixture.

As it cools, the mixture will lighten in color and become creamy. Puncture the vitamin E capsule with the tip of a sharp knife and squeeze the contents into the cream. Continue whisking.

Add the almond or olive oil and whisk until the cream becomes thoroughly mixed and cools completely. Lastly, whisk in the 10 drops of essential oil.

The cream can be stored indefinitely in an airtight glass jar that is clearly labeled. It should be stored in a medicine cabinet or any place that limits light and dramatic temperature fluctuations.

Diana George Chapin is the NEWS garden columnist. Send horticulture questions to Gardening Questions, 512 North Ridge Road, Montville 04941 or e-mail dianagc@midcoast.com. Selected questions will be answered in future columns. Include name, address and telephone number.