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L'Occitane Pivoine Delicate Hand Cream
by kubs1989
I received a 75ml tube of this Pivoine Délicate hand cream as a gift. I love the original Shea butter hand cream from L'Occitane and was looking forward to trying something different. This product is enriched with Shea Butter, Vitamin E and Peony extract from the Drôme region of France. It retails at £14 for 75ml, which is a little ... pricey for a hand cream.
The packaging is sweet, the hand cream is contained within a pretty pink box with floral decoration. The tube itself is plainly designed, with an opaque, pink tube with a small label indicating its contents. The tube has a screw lock dispenser, so there is no lid. You simply turn the cap to dispense the cream and twist to reseal.
The cream is white and is quite thick in consistency, thanks to the Shea butter. Despite the richness of the product, it is easily distributed over the hands and is absorbed quickly into the skin. I find a 10 pence sized amount is a plentiful amount for a heavy duty application. The fragrance is a strong floral scent, it is a very feminine smell - it may not be to some peoples taste - I myself, do not mind the fragrance. My hands feel instantly moisturised and soft following an application of this. The effects lasts for hours, without any greasiness. Even after hand washing my hands feel less dry. The fragrance also lingers on the skin for several hours after application.
The Shea butter content in this cream is less than the 30% in the original hand cream. I do not find this cream as rich or as moisturising as the original. Nevertheless, this is a good hand cream; adding moisture, softness with added fragrance. This fragrance will not be to everyone's taste, so I recommend trying it at stockists.
Overall this is a nice moisturising hand cream, but I do not think it is suitable for very dry skin who require intense moisture. I do not think I will be purchasing this as I love the original cream too much!
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L'Occitane Verbena Cooling Hand Cream Gel
by koshkha
~All that Glitters is not Gold~
My love of almost all things from the French company l'Occitane means I occasionally pick up something utterly ridiculous, lured by the promise of deliciously smelling products and forgetting to ask myself what the point of the product is actually supposed to be. I expect to love everything they ... make but I should probably be a bit more selective. I had tested the 'Cooling Hand Cream Gel with Organic Verbena Extract' in an airport duty free so I knew that it smelled absolutely fabulous. I'd somehow forgotten to check if it was actually any good as a hand cream. A few months later, a particularly generous friend who decided to send me a present 'just because' ordered a L'Occitane verbena gift box from John Lewis, stuffed with lots of lovely goodies and a tube of Cooling Hand Cream Gel. Everything else was superb but the gel is a dud.
~Quack Quack~
The first question we should ask is undoubtedly "What is it supposed to be?" and I'm not entirely sure. It looks like a hand cream, it smells like a hand cream, it comes out of a little silver tube (if you have the 30ml version) like all the L'Occitane hand creams and you rub it on your hands, just like a hand cream. So far I would expect you're thinking "It looks like a duck, it paddles like a duck and it quacks like a duck". You're not expecting me to tell you it's a chicken. But quite possibly it is.
The product is not supposed to be a moisturising hand cream at all. It's supposed to lift the spirits of your hot sweaty paws, cool them down, reduce swelling and leave them feeling dry and unsweaty. I can partly believe all those things but this product is designed to solve a problem that I don't have. I can't think of a time when I've ever found myself yearning for something to make my hands cool and unpuffy. I could kind of understand such claims in a foot product - think Princess Diana's old favourite, the Body Shop Peppermint Foot Lotion - but never my hands.
~Cool, Baby~
Whilst I enjoy the brief blast of cooling sensation I get from a small blob of this product and I adore the intensely juicy fragrance of it, I absolutely hate the way it leaves my hands feeling dry and almost powdery. My mind starts telling me that my hands need moisture, that the skin is about to crack up and has me reaching frantically for whatever moisturising goop I can find nearby. The blurb on the tube tells me that it's supposed to 'moisturise and refresh' (actually it says 'moisturize' so it must be intended for Americans). Yes it refreshes but I can't honestly endorse the claim that it moisturises. Cools and dries would be my three word summing up of this product.
The fabulous scent is mostly given by the organic verbena extract. Verbena is an astonishing plant which manages to smell more like a lemon than a lemon does. Isn't nature amazing? The smell is not all verbena though; the clever folks at L'Occitane have squeezed in some orange, geranium and lemon tree extracts as well to create a scent so juicy that it's like a frozen lemon sorbet. The dry powdery feel which I dislike so much is almost certainly down to the tapioca powder which is added to the gel. I can imagine that if you suffer from sweaty hands, a tube of this could help but obviously I can't prove that either way.
~A Potentially Expensive Mistake~
A 75 ml tube of this will set you back £14 or slightly less if you can find it duty free or as part of a collection of products. My 30 ml tube was part of a gift set so wouldn't be as expensive but I don't think the small format is available on its own. I think £14 is a ridiculous price because it's not something I need but I can imagine for those who do have sweaty, puffy hands, it might feel like a bit of a bargain. I find the name 'cooling hand cream gel' misleading since I'm sure I am not the only person mislead into expecting a hand cream rather than a cooling product.
I won't bore you with the ingredients list and I'm sure that if you're allergic or avoiding any particular ingredients you'll already be used to checking things out online or on pack before you buy. A good proportion of the ingredients are of natural origin and like all L'Occitane products, the extracts that are used are of excellent quality. Once opened the contents of the tube should be fine for up to 12 months, though I would admit I often keep products much longer than that and haven't come across any problems. I very much doubt that this tube will get finished but I may have to go looking for a friend with hot, sweaty hands who likes the smell of lemons.
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L'Occitane Shea Butter Hand Cream
by cha97mw
I was lucky enough to get a free tube of this handcream just before Christmas thanks to a facebook offer. It was only a small 30ml tube, but this was more than enough to form a strong opinion on this delightful product.
Hand cream is something I go through in industrial amounts. I have exceptionally dry skin, and because I am ... always washing my hands they look unsightly very quickly unless I am applying cream to them several times per day. I am also a knitter, so to prevent my wool snagging, I apply cream just before I pick up my work usually. Most creams make my skin smoother but do not make it completely snag free. I find creams with glycerin or oil are usually best for me. Reviews on this brand had led to me believe that it was one of the best on the market, so I was very happy to try it for free, particularly when a 30ml tube retails for £8. A 150ml tube is the better bargain at £19.00, but this is not really for those on a tight budget.
The L'Occitane cream comes in packaging that reminds me a lot of a paint set I had when I was a kid. The tube is silver with a small screw top lid. It is a high quality packaging which is not prone to splitting, and I think looks good. The cream is incredibly thick, white in colour, and has a light floral scent which I find pleasant. The cream has 20% shea butter, which is absorbed incredibly fast into my skin. I normally have to put a lot of cream onto my hands, but with this one, a small blob about as big as a pea is enough to cover the palms and the back of my hands, including between my fingers where I have thick dry patches. As well as the shea butter, there are also honey and almond extracts, as well as coconut oil.
My hands are so smooth when I have applied this, and this is a smoothness that lasts a good part of the day. I find with other creams, I need to reapply after every time I wash my hands. With this cream, an application in the morning I can then get on with what I am doing and my skin is still lovely and soft without it looking or feeling greasy, and I can do jobs with my hands straight away. I wouldn't be scared to get in the car for example. With some creams I would as I would feel my hands were not able to grip correctly on the steering wheel.
My only complaint really is the high cost. I find it hard to justify the price when I can buy a 125ml of something like the soap and glory hand food which I also like for around £5, or I can look for avon hand creams for a similar price. Although I have to use more, I don't use that much more I spend as much as I would on this brand. I think it will be something I would buy as an occasional treat or tell people I would like for a present, but I can't justify the price for buying it regularly. Its a shame really as it is genuinely the best cream I have used and I would love my hands to feel baby soft all the time.
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