Putty in my hands - Lush

I WAS PUTTY IN THEIR HANDS
I bought this just before we went on holiday recently as it was a product they were promoting for Mother's day. The assistants in the shop were giving my hands a pamper with it and then massaging them with a hand cream. I was getting ready to go on holiday and buying some of the Toothy tabs but somehow got persuaded to buy some of this. I said "Okay give me a small piece then" and thought no more about it. I paid by card and just pinned in my number. It wasn't until I got home that I saw I had spent £14 on the piece of this hand cleanser that I hadn't really wanted anyway.

Oh well. Over the last months I have had so many generous samples I felt I had to forgive them and anyway there was really nothing I could do as I had actually bought it willingly!! It shows me that I should pay attention when buying weighed items from Lush as they always work out more expensive than you think. I have found the same with some soaps too and the solid deodorant always comes as a bit of a shock.

PRICEY PUTTY
This is a hand 'soap and is sold by weight. The price in Lush is £5.95 per 100g and my piece is about 5 inches long by 2 inches wide and 2 inches deep and as I said this piece cost me £14. You don't seem to need very much per hand wash though so it might last me quite a while.

CLEANSING PUTTY
This is a very different concept created by Lush specifically for people with sensitive hands and hands that react badly to washing with normal soaps. This is a soap in that it washes and cleans your hands but it has no real soap in it. Despite the fact it has none of the ingredients that create lather it does have three vital ingredients to cleansing. The special cleansing ingredients are Chamomile, lavender and tea tree oil as these not only make the product smell lovely but also these oils are antiseptic and antibacterial so kill germs that might be on your hands.

The first few times I used this I wasn't sure that my hands would truly be clean as none of the normal things happened to my hands that usually do when washing them. I got no lather and even after rinsing my hands had a slight creamy feel to them.

SOOTHING PUTTY
So having convinced me that this does actually clean my hands with the use of natural essential oils to be antiseptic and antibacterial I was now able to enjoy the fact that my hands were actually being pampered and soothed each time I washed them with this. We have already found that this contains chamomile and lavender essential oils which a well as being cleansing are also both very soothing to the skin and relaxing as well. They are known to reduce redness and skin irritation and can also help repair skin damage and soothe any rashes like eczema.

Besides these essential oils this putty also contains oats which are soothing to skin, products like Aveeno use oats in their creams to soothe eczema and similar skin rashes.

Vegetable glycerine is used instead of animal tallow which is the traditional ingredient of soap, this glycerine is made from rapeseed grown in the UK or EU. The glycerine softens the skin and also helps the skin absorb other ingredients like the shea butter.

Shea butter is almost a wonder ingredient for healing and soothing skin as it is very high in Vitamins A, E and it provides skin with all the essential elements it needs for good balance, elasticity and tone.

Marshmallow mucilage is something I have never heard of and to be truthful sounds a bit like something that might come from your nose!! Apparently it comes from the marsh mallow herb plant which has this gummy substance in it which was used to make marsh mallows originally. It is supposed to be very good at relieving inflamed skin and soothing it once again.

PLAYING WITH PUTTY
I found this very strange to begin with as it looks exactly like the putty you put in windows and in fact feels pretty much the same though this one is quite a lot more pricey so I don't advise trying it in your windows frames. This luckily is where the similarity ends as whenever I have puttied windows my fingers get very sore and dry.

Lush say that you can use this like soap and rub the entire block in your hands like a bar of soap but I imagined my £14 lump disappearing very quickly if it got too wet as a lump so I decided not to use this method.

My method is to keep said lump of putty in its wrapper and in a plastic ziplock minibag and from this I break of small pieces about the size of a broadbean. I then take this piece and squish it a bit in my hands, wet my hands just a little and then squish and rub this piece into my hands and all around in a 'washing hands' movement. There is NO lather t all it is just a sort of thick cream that you work into your hands paying particular attention to any dry skin parts like cracked knuckles. The putty feels almost silky when mixed with water and I do make an effort to massage my hands a bit when using this as it feels so soothing and creamy. After this I very lightly rinse off my hands and gently dry them.

After drying my hands do feel 'washed' and clean but they also feel quite smooth and soft too. I do use my hand a lot and I am not very good about wearing gloves for gardening or cleaning so my hands do get treated quite roughly. I haven't ever had any major skin problems with my hands in terms of cracking and dry skin so I can't say whether this would help although Lush claim it does. I have however found that my hands do feel nicer and a lot softer than they have before.

This alone does not perfect hands make but when you combine using this with applying a good hand cream then you have true pampering. I always have tubes of handcream around the house and I do keep a Lush solid 'Helping Hands' in my handbag in a small plastic bag too so that there is never an excuse for forgetting to look after my hardworking mitts.

SMELLY PUTTY
The smell of this is subtle rather than obvious. When you look at the lump of brown putty you wouldn't imagine that it would smell nice at all; although i do rather like the smell of window putty Ii admit but this smells nothing like that. The combination of lavender, camomile and tea tree blend to create a sort of fresh herby scent that is clean and slightly medicinal but not in a nasty way! I think the combination of tea tree and chamomile essential oils give that medicinal scent. The lavender scent isn't obvious to me but maybe it changes when combined with the other ingredients.

This does remind me a bit of 'Angels on bare Skin; face cleanser as it smells similar and you use it in a similar way. The Angels cleanser does also have ground almonds to gently exfoliate but they are certainly very like each other in consistency, scent and the way you use them.

WILL I BE PUTTY IN THEIR HANDS AGAIN?
Well it certainly is a novel product and for anyone with major skin problems on their hands I would definitely say give this a try as it is packed solid with great natural ingredients. However for all this natural stuff you do pay a price unfortunately and it is a pretty hefty price in my humble opinion. I was shocked when I saw what I had paid. I applaud Lush for creating this all natural product and i do believe that it would be of great benefit to anyone with eczema on their hands but as my hands are not too badly cracked I am not sure that I will be rushing back to hand over that sort of money for this putty again.

This is a lovely product that smells really good and clean but for my use I feel it is a luxury at that price and there are more exciting luxury products that I think I will choose to spend my money on. It loses its last star for the price I feel.

Thanks for reading. This review may be posted on other sites under my same user name.
©Catsholiday