I enjoy shopping at The Body Shop and always take advantage of the special offers and discounts that they have on regularly. That was how I came to purchase the Almond Nail and Cuticle Oil Pen. At full price it costs £7 but I paid, on estimate, £3-34 which I feel is much more reasonable!

This pen is part of the Almond hand range which also includes a hand cream, a hand wash and an intensive hand butter. As the name suggests, it is pen-like in appearance with an angled lid that comes off to reveal a brush very like the concealer brush you get with Touche Eclat and similar products. The pen has the almond range colours of cream and light brown to fit in with the rest of the range.

The pen is described as a two-in-one pen which "softens cuticles while caring for dry, brittle nails". It contains sweet almond oil, Vitamin A and Vitamin E, and Community Fair Trade soya oil, Community Fair Trade olive oil and Community Fair Trade beeswax. The soya oil comes from organic, non-GM soya beans grown in southern Brazil via traditional farming methods. This provides a regular income for the Capanema farmers of the area. It's good to know that The Body Shop are still maintaining an interest in their ethical heritage even though they are now owned by L'Oreal.

The pen is supposed to be moisturising and is meant to tidy cuticles. To use, you are meant to twist the cap to dispense the oil and brush it onto your cuticles. You should then put the cap back on and using the tool gently push down your cuticles. It is described by The Body Shop as the second step in their Almond hand care regime: presumably the first step is washing and the third is moisturising.

The oil has a pleasant almond scent, which however is very subtle and easily masked by a hand cream. The oil has the general texture and consistency of baby oil; it can be slightly greasy so I stuck to using the pen at night time.
It was easy enough to apply the oil and rub it in. I then used the end of the lid to push my cuticles back. I found this quite difficult as the end was so big. Most cuticle tools I have come across have been much smaller. In the end I gave up doing this. I applied my regular hand cream (usually Body Shop's Hemp Hand Cream) after applying this oil.

The pen lasted for around two months before suddenly running out. One bad thing about it is that there was no warning of this - there is no way to tell how much you have left.

Ultimately, I found that this product didn't actually do anything. My cuticles and nails didn't seem to be more moisturised or in better condition. Maybe this was because I only used it once a day - perhaps I should have used it more often. However, I couldn't do this as it was slightly greasy. In addition, the lid didn't really work to push back my cuticles, as it was too big.

I can't really recommend this product as it didn't do anything for me. I have read good reviews though so maybe it works for some people - just not for me! In fairness it isn't too expensive if you use a discount code or voucher so it might be worth a try.