Super Intensive Hand Cream (The Body Shop Hemp Hand Protector)

Member Name: clairestevens

Product:	The Body Shop Hemp Hand Protector
Date:	15/01/08 (118 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Excellent for very dry hands

Disadvantages: Too intensive for people with 'normal' hands

Before I had children I used to ask my mum why she had such rough hands. She told me it was something that happened once you had kids to look after because your hands were always in and out of water. Rubbish, I thought. Why don't you just wear rubber gloves? Once I had children I realised that that wasn't always possible and when my hands started to get chapped and sore I realised I'd need to do something about it.

I'd heard about The Body Shop's Hemp Hand Protector from a friend with similarly chapped hands and decided to give it a go. I paid over my £9 (harsh, but I was willing to give anything a go) and took it home.

The Hemp Hand Protector comes in a metal tube, a bit like old toothpaste tubes. In fact, I worried that after a while all the cream would start to squeeze out of cracks in the sides like toothpaste used to, but I'm nearly at the end of my tube and it hasn't happened so far. The tube is dull metal, with a green and black blurb box, emblazoned with a cannabis leaf and the name of the product. Instructions are on a similar box on the back. The tube has quite a small lid, which makes balancing it on its end a bit tricky.

The cream itself is very thick - about the consistency of lard - and pale green. It has a funny smell, not really of cannabis smoke, more a sort of earthy, mushroomy, cut grass smell with a slightly sweet undertone. I don't mind the smell myself, but my husband hates it, so I'd recommend anyone interested in buying it to make sure they smell it and try it out first.

You only need a pea-sized amount to cover your hands and wrists and it smooths into your skin pretty well, although it does leave my skin feeling very slightly sticky afterwards. I find it best to apply it before going to sleep of a night so I don't notice the stickiness.

Does it work? Yes, it does actually. My skin does flare up occasionally, but as long as I put this stuff on before I go to bed I can be sure of my hands feeling a lot better by morning. I'm probably never going to have hands that look like they did before I had kids and actually had to start doing some housework, but they're not too bad. I would say that this is too intensive to use if you don't have dry hands, but if you have rough, chapped hands or if you do a lot of gardening or cleaning then it's just the ticket.

The active ingredients are:

Hemp seed oil, which has an unusually high concentration of essential fatty acids that help to repair the skin's moisture barrier thus helping to restore moisture, smoothness and suppleness.

Allantoin which helps to relieve and soothe dry skin.

Panthenol which is proven to improve flexibility of the nails, helping to reduce flaking and breakage.

The cream comes in two sizes - 30ml for £5 and 100ml for £9. To get an even better result you can also get white cotton gloves from the Body Shop to wear after applying the cream. Apparently they help the cream soak in better, but I didn't get any because I thought they'd make me look like Mickey Mouse....

Summary: A great buy if you have dry, chapped hands