Helps dirty hands [SEP] We do a lot of house work, art, construction work, and gardening. We use a lot of soap. That orange goop with pumice in it is our normal heavy duty hand cleaner, this soap is equivalent to that soap without the orange scent. You definitely do need water for it to be effective even though the bottle claims you don't. The hand cream is a great heavy duty healing lotion, similar to eucerin. I haven't noticed an appreciable difference in the ease of cleanymy hands after using the barrier cream however.