“Ugh, my cuticles are dry!” my Canadian pipefitter boyfriend said over the phone, 3,000 miles away. “I think I need to moisturize.” He has the most rugged job out of anyone I know, and yet he moisturizes daily. Aveeno, he swears by it.

“Now that you’re moisturizing, it makes me want to moisturize,” I said, not wanting to be out girled by someone who pounds steel together in the Canadian cold all day, as I reached for my Burt’s Bees Baby Bee Buttermilk Lotion. “Mine’s all natural.”

This article appears in Apr 8-14, 2009.