Do you wear a wedding ring? Are your fingernails manicured, or bare? Do you favour short red nails, or long pale, Is your skin soft and supple or dry?

Perhaps your hands are ingrained with soil from a passion for gardening? Or calloused from riding your bike or the gym? Perhaps your fingernails are bitten from a nervous disposition, or the perfectly groomed hands of one who likes to take care of herself.

Always exposed to the elements, our hands give away our true ages. As young and beautiful as our faces may look, if you don’t take care of them your hands will give you away.

There are easy ways to spot a seamstress, or anyone who works with needles and threads, pins and scissors. They all show it in their hands.

The telltale signs that someone sews are dry, calloused and cracked thumbs, with needle marks under the nail from pushing needles through fabrics, and corresponding sore skin on middle fingers on the other hand. If you are smiling at this you will know how much a tiny needle prick and repetitive work can hurt.

I had the idea for SEAMS whilst on a millinery course at the London College Of Fashion, I had designed and manufactured a rain hat that folded into its own pouch and wanted to learn how a hat was made to be able to create my own patterns.

Coming home each night with sore pin pricked, burnt and dry hands, I was having to put antiseptic on my cuts and couldn’t use a hand cream as they all stung. We all needed a hand cream that helped to heal, felt soothing and moisturised without being greasy so that we could use it around fabrics.When I asked our tutor what she used on her hands she said there is nothing that helps.

It was named SEAMS as I was sewing a seam when the idea came to me, and SEAMS means fixing and joining. SEAMS now represents everything we needed for our hands,  it helps mend sore hands, moisturises, soothes, and protects. It conditions nails, is non-greasy and smells wonderful at the same time.

The key ingredients were chosen especially to soothe seamstresses’ hands, Shea butter to moisturise and soothe skin, Macadamia and Rosehip Oils to soften and restore condition, Vitamin E and glycerine to help mend and protect, Fragonia Oil a new ingredient with antibacterial and calming properties and Keratin to condition nails. The SEAMS signature scent was created to bring a moment of calm and relaxation with every use.

Initially SEAMS was produced in pump-action dispensers for seamstresses to use in ateliers and was so well received that they requested handbag sizes so that they could use it all day. By August 2013 the tubes were in production and being sold online.

SEAMS very first press feature was in You Magazine with the Mail on Sunday. By chance a year later whilst at an event I met Bella Blissett the beauty journalist who had written SEAMS first feature, she said that she too had attended the London College of Fashion and had encountered the same problem with her hands.

Every seamstress, make-up artist and designer to encounter SEAMS has delighted in their common discomfort being recognised and alleviated by SEAMS. It has become the staple of London Fashion Week being backstage at Top Shop Unique.

But it is not just for Seamstresses, all hands love SEAMS

Sew long sore hands

Karen J Gerrard