The Body Shop Almond Oil Intensive Hand Rescue

One of my stocking fillers on Christmas day was a 50ml/45g pot of Almond Oil Hand Rescue Treatment from The Body Shop. Oh and yes you did read right, stocking filler. My future in-laws bought me a little stocking that they put a few bits in for me, how sweet!

I am relatively new to hand cream but as the years roll on it becomes more and more necessary for me to use it. Up until now I have only used it sporadically when my hands were desperate. As I get closer to thirty I am finding it less of a rescue product and more of a constant maintenance one. That and I realise that if I don't look after my skin on my hands I will end up regretting it in the long run.

I have one or two areas where I suffer from eczema, one of these is a small patch at the base of my thumb on my right hand. Every so often it can get very dry and sore, other times it hardly even notices. You may wonder why I am telling you but I thought that anyone else that suffers from eczema may find it useful to know from this point of view but also the rest of my hands are normal so I can give you two views in one, bargain!

My pot was just under half the size of the ones on The Body Shops website, they are usually 100g. The packaging is the same though. The large pot is a rather expensive £9.00.

It comes in a cream plastic pot with a screw top lid. Simple and easy to open and close even with your hands covered in cream.

The lid has a beige round sticker on it with a handprint in cream as the background, well just in case the word hand wasn't enough of a hint! There is the usual Body Shop logo and it says
Almond oil
HAND RESCUE TREATMENT
To soften and moisturise
50ml 45g (1.6oz)
This sticker can also peel back and has a full ingredients list and the words "AGAINST ANIMAL TESTING"

Around the pot there is another sticker in the same colour, which says "Hand Rescue Treatment" in fourteen languages. It also shows the company details, recyclable symbol and the barcode.

When you rove the lid you find another barrier standing between yourself and the contents. There is a small lid that just rests on the lip of the tub. I am guessing this is to stop the lid from getting messy.

The cream itself has a very subtle and impressive fragrance. I am not usually a fan of the almond scent but this is very nice. It is not in your face and is all the better for it. The cream is an off white colour, nothing particularly impressive. You can see by looking at it that it is incredibly thick and luxurious. It looks like whipped cream or something along that consistency.

As soon as your finger touches it you can feel that it will moisturise very well. it has the usual cold feel you get with creams which some hate but I love, there is something about that cold feeling that just makes me think that I am doing myself good.

This is easy to smother onto your hands and you really don't need very much as a little goes a very long way. As with all rich hand creams this does leave a oily feeling on your skin but that does not last where it sinks in very quickly. After about ten or fifteen minutes that feeling has gone and you just have the soft feeling left behind.

This works so quickly! The first time I used this was one of those times when my eczema was playing and it had become rather sore where it had become so dry, after putting a thick slathering of this on before bed on Christmas night I woke up on Boxing day with soft hands and only a tiny trace of eczema showing. My hands felt a hundred times better than they had the day before!

I have had no trouble with my eczema since I started using this cream almost every single night. It certainly does not aggravate mine in any way so it should be suitable for others with eczema too. Almond oil tends to be very gentle unlike some other oils.

The Body Shop always does a right up on the main ingredients on their website, they say;
Sweet almond oil
Provides essential fatty acids that help to repair the moisture barrier of the skin, thus helping to restore moisture, smoothness and suppleness. Has traditionally been used by specialist manicurists, owing to its
Shea butter
Moisturises and helps soften the skin.
Organic Soya oil
Is very rich in essential fatty acids that help to repair the moisture barrier of the skin, thus helping to restore moisture, smoothness and suppleness.

The Shea butter in this product is also community trade, which is The Body Shops version of fair trade. It comes from northern Ghana and so the approximately 400 women from ten villages who grow it there are paid a fair price for it, which in turn means that they have a far better life. The website says "Since trading with The Body Shop the women have been able to dramatically change their lives with water pipes and wells saving hours of water collecting, better housing, medical care, food, and self esteem. Importantly, they are also able to give their children, particularly their daughters, the chance to go to school."

I love this cream and my other half has to admit that he does too, he suffers from extremely dry skin on his knuckles in the winter moths, they end up cracking and bleeding, being a man he knows best, obviously and refuses to use cream every night. To be honest he should actually use it several times a day where they are so bad, but he wont.

He has used this several times and it stings when it is first put on where his hands are so bad. He always finds they are much improved the next day.

Unfortunately the bottom of this pot is starting to show and soon enough it will all be gone. It is probably about half gone now, so all in all it will last about a month. I am using it almost every night and have used it about eight or so times on my other half's hands and when I do I make the most of it and put about five times the amount I use on them. I would say that the large pot would last someone that used it once a day with a small amount like you actually need about three months. Obviously I can only guess, to be honest I would say I am being rather conservative with that and it would probably last a little longer.

The cost of this is rather high, I am a Body Shop lover but would still struggle to pay that amount out had I not already used this that is. Now I know just how good this is I will buy it for myself. Although £9.00 is a lot it does last and would only work out at between £2.25 and £3.00 a month. Doesn't sound so bad when put that way does it.

I am very impressed with the moisturising properties of this cream and most definitely strongly recommend it to anyone that wants a rich hand cream. I am going to give it a four star rating but would happily give it four and a half really. It is only really let down by the price.
Of course all a Body Shop review cannot be left lacking the fact that they do not test their products on animals.

I have uploaded a picture of this product and some of the others that The Body Shop offers in their almond oil hand products.

The Body Shops website is a great place to look round for more information on products, the charities they are involved with and to find out where your local store is located. You can also buy online with reasonable postage charges and I have found quite rapid delivery.
Here is a full ingredients list for those that may be interested.

Aqua (Water) (Solvent/Diluent), Glycerin (Humectant), Cetearyl Alcohol (Emulsifier), Myristyl Myristate (Emollient), Butyrospermum parkii (Shea Butter) (Emollient), Propylene Glycol (Humectant), Glyceryl Stearate (Emulsifier), Prunus dulcis (Sweet Almond Oil) (Emollient), C12-15 Alkyl Benzoate (Emulsifier), PEG-100 Stearate (Surfactant), Dimethicone (Skin Conditioning Agent), Glycine soja (Soybean Oil) (Emollient/Skin Conditioner), Panthenol (Skin/Hair Conditioning Agent), Cera Alba (Beeswax) (Emulsifier/Emollient), Lanolin (Emollient), Phenoxyethanol (Preservative), Parfum (Fragrance), Methylparaben (Preservative), Propylparaben (Preservative), Xanthan Gum (Viscosity Modifier), Hexyl Cinnamal (Fragrance Ingredient), Linalool (Fragrance Ingredient), Butylphenyl Methylpropional (Fragrance Ingredient), Disodium EDTA (Chelating Agent), Limonene (Fragrance Ingredient), Coumarin (Fragrance Ingredient), Methyl 2-Octynoate (Fragrance Ingredient), Citral (Fragrance Ingredient), Geraniol (Fragrance Ingredient), CI 19140 (Colour), CI 15985 (Colour).