Body Shop Honey & Beeswax Hand & Foot Butter

I've become a huge fan of hand creams over the last year or so. I'd never needed them before and could never understand why women seemed to carry hand cream religiously

But I think as I've got older my skin has started to change and it probably doesn't help that I don't moisturise my body every day like I used to. At least when I was doing that my hands were getting moisturised without my even thinking about it. I find nowadays that my hands get noticeably dry between my fingers, especially during the winter months and especially when I've been wearing rings.

I've tried numerous hand creams and been distinctly unimpressed with some. I don't like to be left with a sticky residue so I need a cream that sinks in quickly. I don't like synthetic scents or too greasy a feel.

I am a bit of a product snob so I wasn't expecting much of this Body Shop hand and foot butter. I bought it originally for my feet because I moisturise them at night and I don't like the standard peppermint formulas, I find them too zingy before bed! But I used this on my hands and just carried on doing so because it's the best I've found in a long time.

The packaging is unusual, I've never seen hand cream in a Kilner jar before. I'm more used to using these for flour/pasta/rice (and my homemade sloe gin!) At first I thought it was ridiculous but actually it's quite a good idea. You'd expect it to be difficult to close when you've just applied cream but it's actually quite simple and probably easier than a screw lid, especially a small one (I'm looking at you L'Occitane!) I don't carry it around in my bag as I only use it at night. If I did want to carry it with me I'd probably have to decant some into a small pot. I don't see this as a huge problem though. And I'm looking forward to re-using this pot when I've finished the cream!

The cream itself has a thick, buttery texture but isn't greasy at all. It absorbs quickly and has a subtle scent, barely detectable in fact. It takes care of my scaly between-finger patches with no problem at all, in fact I haven't noticed that I've had any since I started using it. Boyfriend has even started to ask for some at night to soothe his chapped hands - as a mechanic and part time builder his hands are always dry and sore. Normally he complains about hand creams and won't use them because they are too greasy and/or sting his hands. But he's a fan of this. Which speaks more highly of it than you can imagine, let me assure you.

You can buy this wonder cream from The Body Shop. I had thought it was £5.00 and was going to rave about how bargainous that is but I've just checked online and it's actually £10.00 for this 125ml pot. It's definitely worth £10.00 but it's not the bargain I had thought it was.