Thursday, 9 June 2016

Helping Hands Hand Cream




Whilst I was at university, I had to wash up. A lot. My hands used to get so dry and my skin used to peel. I started using Sympathy for the Skin at first and it was the only Lush hand cream that I owned. I then went into the Lush by my university and I saw that they sold this product: Helping Hands: a hand cream to use when "your hands spend too much time in the sink."

I bought it immediately. I started applying Helping Hands as soon as my hands were dry after washing up and it would help my skin feel moisturised again. And it worked very very well for those 'washing-up' hands. It would be the first thing I would do after washing up. Sometimes, I would even take it into my kitchen with me so that it was on hand after I had washed up.

I finished living at university a month ago and I still own the same cream as I did last year so it definitely lasts a long time.

Now that I'm not at uni, I don't really do that much washing up *sorry mom, sorry dad* but I do work in retail and when the shelves/rails are dusty, it really affects my hands and causes them to dry out very quickly.

So I started using Helping Hands again to see if it would help with having dusty hands *ew*. I apply some before I go to work and by the time and my hands are fine, but when I have applied the lotion after I have finished work and my hand are incredibly dry, I had to keep applying the cream about every 20 minutes. For those 20 minutes, the cream did however make my hands feel smooth and it did feel like it had absorbed well. It just didn't last long. This cream does work slightly better though for when after you've washed up. Not much better though.

Helping Hands has a woody, grassy scent which is made up of linseed mucilage and a floral scent which is made up from lavender oil, African marigold oil and alkanet extract. Even though the ingredients suggest that this cream will have a floral aroma, I found that it was more grassy than floral. The smell isn't strong either, which I like when it comes to hand creams. The smell is very slight and you only get a whiff of it when you're applying it.




Almond oil, shea butter and cocoa butter are jam-packed into Helping Hands to give it it's moisturising properties but with three moisturising ingredients in the product, I thought it would have lasted longer than 20 minutes.

This hand lotion is thicker than most hand creams from Lush. It's definitely a lot thicker than Sympathy for the Skin and it's slightly thicker than the Charity Pot. For Lush, it doesn't matter whether the cream has a thin or a thick consistency, you don't really need much for it to work. But with Helping Hands, I needed to put slightly more on that I would have liked for my hands to feel soft and then there's that 20 minutes problem...

Even though I thought it would have a floral smell, I still love the aroma that Helping Hands gives off and I guess you could say that the smell does last for a while as I had to keep reapplying it and I love how moisturising it is at first. But for me, that's the thing that let's this cream down. If it kept my hands moisturised for longer, then this would be in my top five for hand creams, but it doesn't and that's why I will always pick other Lush hand lotions over this one.

If you suffer from very dry skin from washing up or even eczema then this cream will work brilliantly for you, it will work absolute wonders, it did for me. But if you're using it as a general, every-day hand cream where your hands are only slightly dry, then I don't recommend it.


Description on Lush:
Originally created with nurses in mind as well as all those with cracked and sore hands. Honey is a natural antiseptic and , together with lavender and African marigold essential oils, brings relief. An infusion of gentle chamomile helps to reduce redness, while linseed mucilage softens rough hands and helps to minimise cracking. Almond oil, shea butter and cocoa butter are what makes this cream so moisturising, all bound in a loose emulsion that ensures it sinks in.


Ingredients:
Chamomile Water, Linseed Mucilage, Almond Oil, Glycerine, Stearic Acid, Fair Trade Shea Butter, Cetearyl Alcohol, Fair Trade Organic Cocoa Butter, Triethanolamine, Honey, Lavender Oil, African Marigold Oil, Perfume, Alkanet Extract, Limonene, Linalool, Methylparaben, Propylparaben


Ingredients:
£7.95/100g


Vegan:
No


Rating:


xoxo
Kirsty

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