A Guide to Hand Creams

Dry rough hands

Hand cream used to be an exclusively winter thing for me. I would buy the really strong and concentrated Neutrogena and put it on regularly throughout the winter to provide relief to my rough unhappy hands. Things changed (on the hand cream front, and of course in other ways too) once I met D. Along with many other things, he brought into my life a love of hand creams. Suddenly we had a collection of hand creams that all smelled really nice, and that I found myself using no matter the weather outside. Now, every night of the year - winter spring summer and fall - I put on hand cream before going to bed.  Occasionally I put it on in the morning too. We have so many to choose from that it's always fun to pick which one I will use. This winter my hands haven't been as bad (read: knuckles and skin regularly so dry and rough to the point of occasional bleeding) as other winters. And that is not because it is warmer where I am now as it has been an extremely cold winter here. I think my less dry/rough hands must be the result of using hand cream throughout the year as opposed to just in the cold months.

I like blogs and articles on the internet (or in newspapers) where the writer does product reviews. They are fun to read and look like they would be fun to write! So I decided to do a similar thing on my blog with hand creams. Below you will find pictures, descriptions and stories related to all the hand creams currently sitting on my dresser. Here goes, in no particular order:

Body Shop Honeymania Body Butter

I absolutely love the Body Shop's Honeymania scent/line, especially this body butter (which I really only use as hand cream) and its bubble bath (one of the best bubble baths I've ever used, and I've used a lot). The smell is wonderful - light and subtle, just perfect. It is slightly sweet and overall very pleasant. This is one of my favourite hand creams, mostly for the scent. It also goes on easily but I mostly love wearing it because having my hands smell like honey is lovely.

One of my favourites - Fruits & Passion Blueberry Hand Cream

D.  and I really like the store Fruits & Passion. Their candles are particularly nice. We used to go to the store on rue St Denis in Montreal a lot. In Toronto, they have a shop in the Eaton Centre but it's quite small and nowhere near as good as the one on St Denis. Anyway, at the one on St Denis they would always have really good sales and this hand cream was on sale once. It seemed good and I liked how the description said it contained 'Wild Canadian blueberries" so I bought it for D. I, however, pretty much took it over as I just really really liked it. I love the smell. It's a quite strong blueberry scent and just smells great. The hand cream also goes on smooth and does not leave your hands feeling sticky. I really recommend this hand cream!

Body Shop Blueberry Body Butter Special Edition

I feel like whenever I see 'Special Edition' on something, I need to buy it :) Hand cream wise, this product (like its sister Honeymania body butter) is easy to put on and very nice. In addition to the Special Edition factor, I mostly bought this body butter because I love the Fruits & Passion blueberry hand cream so much and so wanted to try out a different blueberry scent. While I do like this one, it is a bit more sour (but not strongly sour) than the F & P one. I prefer the F & P smell but this smell is good too - quite light -  and it definitely grew on me to the point that I use it fairly often.

Herbacin Hand Cream aka Green hand cream

I had to look at the bottle to find out the name of this hand cream. I just think of it as the green hand cream. I love the design and look of the bottle - the daisy on the green background looks very nice. R. gave me my first bottle of this for my 28th birthday and since then (so two years and approximately 2 months) I am still using it (although finished that original bottle so bought more) and still really liking it. Ever since R. gave it to me I feel like I always see it in drug stores. It has a very sweet and comforting smell. I really like this hand cream and feel certain it is one I will always use.

Unlike other Burt's Bees products, this hand cream did not blow me away

I love Burt's Bees products. I use Burt's Bees face wash every day, and I love their peppermint body wash. I bought this hand cream thinking it would be really good. However, it has been a disappointment. It is almost scentless, which I don't like. I like scents! And I just didn't feel it did a lot for my hands. It is labelled as the 'Ultimate Care Hand Cream' but other hand creams have been way better for me. I would not buy it again.

The gold standard in fixing extremely rough hands

 In terms of scent, the bottle makes clear that this hand cream is fragrance free and that is very true. The consistency is very thick and concentrated and only a little of this hand cream goes a long way. I stick with this hand cream because it has proven itself winter after winter and has done wonders on my at times very rough (to the point of bleeding) hands. As I wrote above, ever since I discovered other hand creams I definitely use this one less (and really only in the cold months) but it definitely is my go-to when my hands are at their worst.

I like this one and am sad it's almost done

I bought this hand cream for D. in a little touristy shop in a small town on New Zealand's South Island which I visited in the first days of January 2013. While D. liked it right away, this hand cream grew on me. It has a unique, quite strong smell which I now actually like quite a lot. Its special ingredient is manuka honey; I am not sure how that is different from other honey but I think it's native to New Zealand. Our bottle is almost done and that'll be it so we use it pretty sparingly to stretch it out. Just after I typed that last sentence, however, I decided to google this hand cream and lo and behold (!) it's available on American Amazon. So I guess if we decide we really still want it, we can order it from there. That does make me feel better because I figured once it was done, that would be it and I was a bit annoyed with myself for not buying two bottles when I had the chance.

Hand cream from Lush

K. gave me this hand cream (along with some cool bath products) from Lush for my birthday this year. Its consistency is much more liquidey than the others. Its smell is quite chocolatey, which I was surprised to find that I liked. I usually thought I only liked chocolate smells in things I eat or drink but this hand cream has proven that thought incorrect. The label on this little pot of hand cream features different organizations that help animals. K. just told me that she recently visited a Lush store in Vancouver and inquired about getting the Save the wild Cheetah organization she is a part of on the label.

That's it for my hand creams. If you're reading this and feel like leaving me a comment telling me some of your favourite hand creams, please do! I always love getting recommendations and hearing about other people's favourite products. I wish you a pleasant spring with lovely smooth hands :)

Soft hands undoubtedly caused by hand cream