I too like to garden and feel the soil. I have found that wearing two or sometimes even three pairs of surgical gloves or the tight fitting painters gloves works for me. They are thin enough so you can feel the soil and yet they are flexible so that you can do anything you could do without gloves. There is no bulk. They don't slip off and they are inexpensive. I am right handed so usually put an extra one on my right had. When done just throw away or if no holes turn inside out to dry and then reuse.

silicon glove by avon. goes on like a lotion. very good product

I was at a spring craft show this week-end and saw the cutest gardning gloves, They are just purchased garden glove but at the top of each glove a fabric (fancy, fluffy, gathered) cuff had been added. Wish I would have taken a picture. They had done the same thing with rubber gloves. I am sure you would enjoy wearing them. I use Gold Bond lotion.

When my hands get that way I use lots of bagbalm put on my heavy rubber golves and scrub pots and pans in the hotest water I can stand if your not into hand washing your pots and pans just hold your gloved hands in very hot water, the heat helps your hands absorb the balm. At nite I will also coat my hands with balm andput on cotton glovesbefore going to bed by morning my hands feel a lot bettier

I have heard before that the sugar and olive oil really works well.

I love to work out in the garden without gloves too, but I found out - the hard way - that you really should wear gloves when you work in the garden. I got my Garden Gate gardening magazine last month and in there they warned about working in the garden without gloves. You could get rose gardeners disease. I thought it was a joke, but its not, it caused by a soil borne fungus, Sporothrix schenckii.
The fungus can enter your bloodstream thru nicks and cuts. Most of the time it just causes skin infections, but it can ccause lung problems. It can be hard to diagnose, it can take 3 weeks or longer to appear. It is small, painless, pink or purple bumps shpw up on your skin, followed by larger bumps tht resemble boils, and they are slow to heal. If you get it, you need to go to the doctor to get a perscription medication to get rid of it.
Needless to say, I wear gloves when I work in the garden. I had over 120 rose bushes that needed to get pruned, only 15 got pruned. I will have to do them at the end of the first blooming season. I won't have to prune as much.

Derma Drate, Dermaveen, Aqueous Cream, sorbolene, and a few local chemist's ones all work. Hope you can get the first two in the US since the Australian company was bought out by a multinational one. They are both excellent products.

I feel the same way, but I don't mind the gloves. But for times when the gloves aren't what I want, or can't be found, I scrape my nails across a bar of soap before I begin. The embedded soap keeps the dirt out. Then I rub lots of lotion on my hands and don't rub it in.

I use Eurecin since I'm so allergic to most creams and lotions. I discovered that Dollar General carries the generic brand for 1/3 of the price. Works wonderfully. I use a lotion called Sew Soft when I'm sewing or using the computer...non greasy.

I worked in ICU and had to wash my hands a zillion times during a 12 shift. I used Udder Cream. It is fantastic.