Question About Tea Tree Oil In A Dry Skin Care Product

I have dry skin, and during the winter my hands get extremely dry and rough. The other day I found a Vitamin E gel, on the bottle it says "protects, soothes & restores damaged skin" so I decided to try it and noticed dramatic improvement after using it only a couple of days. However, there are also a couple of possible problems, the gel absorbs quickly but leaves my skin feeling slightly sticky, and while I was reading the list of ingredients, I saw Tea Tree Oil listed near the bottom. I know from reading some threads here that Tea Tree Oil is toxic to cats. So is there any way my use of this product might inadvertently result in harm to Snowball if he licks my hands? I was also wondering if there is any possibility that some of this product might be rubbing off on Snowball's fur when I pet him?

Lori,

This is just my personal preference but I wouldn't use it. I tossed all the tea tree oil products I had here at the house after Bartee died. I just don't want to risk it. I can't imagine that Snowball licking your hand would get enough of the stuff in his system, but again, I just wouldn't risk it.

Thanks for your quick response Hissy!