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Lush Sweet Wild Orange Hand Balm is the second new launch I picked up from Lush last week alongside the Posh Chocolate Body Wash (reviewed). It was recommended by a consultant in the Leeds shop after I was talking to her about my hands; I wish I got her name to give her a shout out but I sadly in the furore of Christmas shopping, I didn’t get chance.
Hand cream suitable for dermatitis
From so many years in the beauty industry on top of having the trifecta that is asthma, hay fever and being prone to patches dry skin; I have quite nasty dermatitis on my fingers. I’ve had it for about 10 years and it goes through bursts of being OK and not so OK – usually summer and winter respectively.
The problem when you have dermatitis is that because of the thicker layer of epidermis, it can be quite hard for hand creams to penetrate and sink in and so they just sit on the top and you slowly apply a thick layer of grease to everything you touch.
On the other hand, some hand creams are alcohol based gels and actually dry hands out more than they nourish them, sometimes leaving a slick surface grease – the more gel-like L’Occitane hand creams are a bugger for that.
UVB Narrowband Phototherapy
At the moment, I’m doing a new treatment at home that was recommended by a superb GP from Babylon who told me to look into it. The treatment is UVB Narrowband Phototherapy treatment, otherwise known as TL01 Phototherapy. It involves the repeated use of a handheld UVB lamp that operates on a very specific frequency.
Because of the very specific band of UVB light, the risk of developing something nasty is exceptionally slim but the benefits to slowing down the immune response of over-developing skin cells is massive so I do recommend asking about it.
I’m already seeing benefits, but I still try and carefully cover my hands – it’s something I’ve always been embarrassed about and until now every topical treatment; hand creams; special hand wash; exfoliators and moisture gloves haven’t really worked. So my hope was that this Sweet Wild Orange hand balm would complement the treatment perfectly and I wasn’t wrong.
Lush Sweet Wild Orange Hand Balm ingredients
Lush are doing some cool things with Aloe Vera these days – it’s also one of the key base ingredients in their new Posh Chocolate Body Wash. Aloe Vera is as good for your skin as people say it is, it’s hydrating and a natural anti-inflammatory. Most skincare products that claim to include Aloe use some rancid powdered-form that when going through the drying process, removes most of the goodness; I believe Lush uses the raw gel, retaining the nutrients and benefits.
Squalane is a hydrated and stabilised form of the molecule squalene that is our skin’s natural hydration molecule that should, when properly regulated, keep our skin well moisturised. When included in skincare, it adds buckets of moisture to the skin and seals it in without creating a greasy finish.
Then there’s glycerine, a humectant that bonds moisture to the skin, again without adding grease.
Natural extract wise there’s sweet wild orange oil which is skin conditioning and calming; also very high up in the ingredients list so can assume it’s in reasonably high quantities and the intoxicating scent would seem to back that up.
Then even though not greasy, there’s macadamia nut oil, fair trade shea butter, fair trade organic cocoa butter and soya oil. Cocoa and Shea particularly are known for delivery very low-grease moisture and are fantastic at conditioning the skin, used in some countries for millennia – this is the hand cream Cleopatra or would use!
Full list of Lush Sweet Wild Orange Hand Balm ingredients
Fair Trade Organic Aloe Vera Gel, Water (Aqua), Squalane, Stearic Acid, Glycerine, Sweet Wild Orange Oil, *Limonene, Cetearyl Olivate & Sorbitan Olivate, Almond Oil, Extra Virgin Coconut Oil, Organic Macadamia Nut Oil, Fair Trade Shea Butter, Fair Trade Organic Cocoa Butter, Soya Oil, Sodium Alginate, Wheatgerm oil, Paprika Oleoresin, Tocopheryl Acetate, Phenoxyethanol, Benzyl Alcohol, *Citral, *Linalool. *Occurs naturally.
In use: The Body Shop Hemp Hand cream killer?
To date, after using almost every hand cream out there, the one that I come back to again and again is the hemp hand cream from The Body Shop. I don’t love the ingredients but it’s soothing enough without leaving you slick.
However the Lush Sweet Wild Orange Hand Balm ingredients are incredible and the texture/feel is even better.
On initial application the Lush Sweet Wild Orange hand balm isn’t as rich as The Body Shop Hemp Hand Cream, it spreads very quickly and easily. But once it’s on, the hydration and moisture it leaves blows the Hemp out the water. It also sinks in exceptionally quickly.
The scent it leaves, whilst strong, is the most delicious orange/satsuma scent and is not the remotest bit artificial. It seems with Posh Chocolate over Chocomania, this over Hemp and its satsuma scent knocking The Body Shop’s Satsuma out of the water; Lush really appear to be nipping at the heels of their owner’s former co-venture, and I’m here for it.
The scent reasonably quickly and I find myself applying every few hours, bus as mentioned I fight some dermatitis, so I can’t see someone with normal skin needing to apply this all that often.
The only downside is the pot, and I mentioned this in the Posh Chocolate review, but LUSH really need to come up with a metal/aluminium or something tube; it keeps things fresher, reduced risk of contamination and is about 1,00% more convenient than this pot, which absolutely isn’t. I actually fully intend to buy one of those refillable tubes on Amazon and take it from there. Anyway, after only a few days of using Sweet Wild Orange, I am finding my hands a little softer considering the dermatitis so overall very, very happy – I’ll buy this again and highly recommend.
Lush Sweet Wild Orange Hand Balm is £12 for 50g and is available here (non-affiliate link).
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