A hemping hand from the cannabis cream (The Body Shop Hemp Hand Protector)

Member Name: collingwood21

Product:	The Body Shop Hemp Hand Protector
Date:	01/11/02 (300 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: The best thing for very dry skin I have found, Natural products, wonderful smell, Ethically sound (according to them at least)

Disadvantages: A little expensive, No mind-altering reaction from using it!

Hemp is something of a maligned plant, you know. The very mention of the word brings to mind images of people getting stoned on cannabis, of hippies and drug use. But seriously, hemp is actually a mere cousin of the psychedelic drug, and the levels of THC (the psychoactive bit) are so low in industrial grade hemp as to be almost non-existent. Honestly! I mean, would I really be reviewing mind altering hand cream on a family site such as this? ;-)

The hand cream I am on about comes from the Body Shop - you remember the place, surely? It was where we all bought our natural product smellies before Lush and original Source came along. The Body Shop has been around for some 26 years now (making it older than me!), and still upholds its policies of never testing anything on animals, of supporting community trade with the Third World, of defending human rights and protecting the environment - they are one of the few companies to stand out in this arena among the ethically challenged companies that crowd our high streets. And it was these policies that made Anita Roddick and her company so famous and so fashionable, even if it now appears to on something of a decline. The hemp range was a new selection of products brought out by the Body Shop a few years back in an attempt to revive the ailing company, and it seems to have worked, as I hear that they are now the best selling products there.

Of all the hemp range, my favourite is this product, the Hemp Hand Protector, which is an intensive moisturising cream for dry to very dry skin. I originally found out about it when I overheard someone enthusing its virtues to a friend of hers, saying that it was the only cream she had ever found that was strong enough to control her eczema. My ears pricked up on hearing this, as I knew my mum suffered very badly from over-dry, cracked and sensitive skin on her hands that was rather painful. So, being the lovely daughter that I am, I bought her a tube for mo
ther's day. Within a week, her hands were noticeably better - much less dry and painful, and the cracks didn't look quite so raw - and she told me that she loved the stuff! A further week or two of using this cream every day, and the difference was highly noticeable (it must have been, even my dad saw it), and all but the very worst cracks and splits had gone. That was a couple of years ago, and I know she still uses it, as it is the only thing that will soothe her dry skin.

I have recently started using it myself, and I have to agree with her! This cream is so wonderfully rich that a very small amount leaves my skin feeling very well moisturised and smooth, but not at all greasy, and it is very easily absorbed. And it smells rather good too, a very heavy aroma similar to that of butter cream but with a strong overtone of herbs that makes it smell a lot more natural than most hand creams you come across.

But why does hemp make such good hand cream? Well, this is because the hand protector contains hemp seed oil, a natural lubricant that can enter directly into the lipid layers of dry skin cells to replace the moisture that have been lost for one reason or another (such as exposure to sunlight or contact with cleaning products and soaps). Most moisturisers only put up an artificial barrier on your skin to slow the loss of moisture, and do not actually do anything directly to help your skin cells. So, the hemp seed oil soothes and puts back lost moisture - in fact, no other plant is as rich in the essential fatty acids that do such good things to your skin as hemp is. It also provides a good dose of vitamin E, another ingredient in healthy skin. This makes hemp seed oil the best thing in nature to look after dry skin, and it is this that is the active product in the hemp hand protector. The cream also contains lanolin, which forms a protective barrier above your newly moisturised skin cells to help stop them drying out so quickly
again - this means that your hands feel soothed and moisturised for ages after you apply it.

The hemp hand protector comes in a rather funky silver foil tube - but as well as looking good, it also means that it is virtually impossible to squeeze out too much cream from the tube (which is very annoying and can happen easily with plastic containers). The front of the tube is emblazoned with a green hemp leaf (the logo of this range), and the simple black label used on everything made by the Body Shop. The whole hemp range uses this colour scheme, so they are easy to locate instore - but this shouldn't be too difficult anyway, as the range of products they do has been in something of a noticeable decline of late.

A 100ml tube of the hand protector will set you back £7.50. Admittedly, this does sound rather expensive, but being so rich and thick you only need a small amount to moisturise your hands, and I couldn?t imagine using it more than twice a day as each dose lasts for so long ? so your tube will last you for ages. And remember, you are paying for ethically and environmentally sound hand cream here!

So would I recommend it? Is the Pope Catholic?!?

www.bodyshop.com

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