Fab Four: Hand Creams

Now if there's one thing I hate most about winter it's the hideous affect it has on your skin. I can deal with the cold and the long nights and how downright miserable it is but I just can't cope with the havoc all this cold-to-hot and central heating business plays with my epidermis! One are which I personally find most affected is the skin on my hands. I develop the hands of a carpenter in the Winter months and it's not pretty. So I rely on a batch of trusty hand creams to keep my hands soft and supple as the cold nights draw in!

My #alltimefavourite hand cream has to be Clarins Hand and Nail Treatment Cream. I thinky my grandma or my aunty or someone must have used this when I was younger because the scent sets of a chain of memories in my head. It's delightfully vintage without being too 'old lady'-ish. This cream claims to form a protective layer around the skin on your hands and I must admit , once applied , it does feel like you're wearing a pair of silk gloves. This cream keeps hands soft and supple as well as strengthening nails and conditioning cuticles which for me makes it a triple threat.

The cream most suited to my poor student budget has to be Soap and Glory's Hand Food. This cream, as is expected of all S&G products smells amaaaaazing and it really gets the job done. It absorbs pretty quickly too which is always a plus, no one wants greasy hands, meaning it's perfect for keeping in your handbag for these on-the-go applications. Have I mentioned it smells delicious?

If you want a cream that will not only make your hands feel cracking but also make you feel good about yourself then LUSH's Charity Pot is the way to go. Not only does this cream work as a hand and body lotion it also does a good deed! LUSH donate every single penny you pay for Charity Pot (minus a little for tax purposes) to their chosen charities and funds. It's also made using fair trade and organic materials. I got the smallest pot of this stuff given to me by my dad who'd been stocking up on his own lush goodies and picked up a sample of this (because he's a top bloke) at the till. It's got a very thin consistency but a little goes a very very long way and my tiny vaseling sized pot has lasted me since Christmas. Top moisturising properties, the great ingredients and smell you'd expect from LUSH and it goes to a good cause? Gold star for you, Charity Pot.

Lastly is the new Body Shop Absinthe Purifying Cream. I was given a cheeky test of this by a lovely lady in the St Pancras branch of The Body Shop last week and having been intrigued to try a cream with ABSINTHE, YES ABSINTHE in it, I was pleasantly surprised. For one it didn't immediately enter my blood stream and get me drunk, which was a plus but at the same time it wasn't your average hand cream. This one made my hands , for want of a better word, zing. Not in an unpleasant way, just a 'ooh how tingly' kind of fashion. After the tingling settled my hands felt fresh and most importantly, nice and soft and the whole experience put me in a good mood if i'm honest. Very tempted to invest.

Those are my top 4 hand creams for the moment, i'm sure my journey through minging hands in the winter will see me encounter some more. I could definitely do with testing out some cheaper ones as my mother questioned whether soft hands were really worth £20 the other day and I must admit that maybe she is right. Do you suffer from dry hands in the winter? What are your favourite hand creams? Let me know!