Concrete, cold mornings and a thousand fasteners. Hands split by lunch.

Cement is alkaline. Cold is dry. Tools are tools.

Wet concrete and mortar pull water and oil out of skin and leave it chalky and tight. Drywall dust and insulation do the same thing slower. Cold mornings make the skin stiff before the first fastener, and stiff skin splits where it bends. Then the tools build calluses that catch, lift and tear.

The trades have their own folklore here, most of it a tin of something greasy in the truck that nobody wants on a tool handle. What works is faster and cleaner: a barrier before the shift that absorbs in a minute, a stick that closes a split and stays put under a glove, and an overnight routine that puts the water back. Rhino makes this for people who beat their hands on rock for fun. The trades do it for a living.