What's a Gurugu?! (Handy Gurugu)

Member Name: pink_glitter

Product:	Handy Gurugu
Date:	05/09/09 (56 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: moisturising, smell is OK

Disadvantages: Too thick, has to be applied a little at a time or won't sink in, gritty, pricey for what it is

Here I am with yet another Lush review! It's weird because I don't think I've set foot in the place since June, but I still have loads of their products lying around the house.

When my last hand cream ran out I really wanted to buy one of the Lush hand creams to replace it. I decided on Handy Gurugu over the other two they make - Smitten and Helping Hands - but if I'm honest, I don't really know what it was about this that stood out.

The hand cream comes in one of Lush's famous black pots. A lot of their products come in these pots and they are very plain and boring to look at, but Lush say it's so that you know you're paying for quality ingredients rather than a fancy tub. Another good thing about these tubs, is that if you return five empty ones to the store they will give you a free fresh face mask.

My first question about this product, was 'What's a Gurugu?!' In fact, the answer is written there on the lid of the tub, and it's not a what, but a where. Gurugu is actually the name of the village in Ghana where Lush source their Shea butter from.

Moisturising Shea butter is not the only thing this contains. In fact the ingredients list is really impressive. It also contains amongst other things, rose water, lemon juice, organic almond oil, Organic evening primrose oil, Organic pumpkinseed butter (?!), Vanilla absolute, Organic almond butter. Organic peanut butter, and Organic cashew butter. You can find the full ingredients list at www.lush.co.uk

The hand cream is a bluey grey colour and you can see small black bits that look like small grains in it, but I'll come back to those later.

I wasn't sure about the smell of this cream at first, I thought it smelled a little bit like antiseptic and hospitals, but it has grown on me. It's a very difficult smell to describe, but I'd say it is light and clean smelling. It's slightly floral but has a bit of something else in there that I can't put my finger on.

The hand cream is very thick. In fact, I have found that it is better to apply at night with a pair of cotton gloves than as a daytime hand cream, because of the thickness. When I do apply this during the day I tend to apply this bit by bit, as if you overdo it you will find that the cream does not sink in very well and it may have to be washed off.

As long as you don't apply too much at once, the cream will sink into the skin quite quickly but can leaves the skin feeling slightly greasy for a while. To be honest, this is quite a problem for me because I'd like a hand cream I can take to work, but as I have to type a lot, this is not really suitable due to the greasiness.

Another thing I dislike about this product is that it's gritty. As I said it contains small black particles, and I don't really know what the purpose of these are, because they feel very uncomfortable and don't seem to have any use!

On a more positive note, the hand cream is very moisturising, which is great because I have dry skin and this gets rid of any dry patches I have. It also seems to make skin look brighter and healthier, although this is probably as a result of the moisturising.

A 100g tub of this cream costs £6.40 from Lush or www.lush.co.uk

To be honest, on the whole I have not been very impressed with this product. It is moisturising and smells quite nice, but it's too thick, leaves the skin greasy for too long after application and contains gritty bits which I simply don't understand the purpose of. As an overnight treatment under cotton gloves it works quite well, but I don't think I would recommend this as a daily hand cream and will not be buying it again.

Summary: Not one of Lush's best offerings