Putty In Your Hands Soap

It was mid-March when I began to notice that my hands were looking rather weathered and dry. I had begun to get dry patches in-between my fingers, which initially I wrote off as being the product of winter. However, after enjoying my fourteenth bath in as many days, I realised that it was this rather naughty habit that was causing my hands to suffer; there is such a thing as too much of something good.

I remembered that I'd recently bought a small block of Putty In Your Hands, a soap designed to eradicate dry and flaky skin and bring back the natural moisture of your pores - I thought it was the perfect opportunity to test it out and see if did what it claimed to do.

Unlike most soaps, this one is a lot softer in consistency; it's something you notice instantly when unwrapping your slab. Neither can it be used in the way that you would normally use a soap. Instead, you need to break off a little pea-sized amount and mix it with a drop of water to create a paste. This paste can then be spread across your hands and rinsed off like a normal soap. It works in the same way that Angels On Bare Skin Facial Cleanser does, which it happens to share it's scent with. 

What I liked about Putty In Your Hands, is that this method of breaking off a piece with each use, really helped the bar to go a lot further than your average piece of soap. Whereas you'd normally use the whole bar under the tap, and then leave it in the dish to dry, this bar stays mostly dry all the time, so it doesn't dissolve or shrink due to the added moisture.

Made from a mixture of whole oats, glycerine and cornflour, this is a natural, sensitive soap that helps to eradicate sore, dry or sensitive hands, without removing the moisture and natural oils from your pores. Lush go a little further by including mucilage from the root of the marshmallow herb, which is known for its lubricating and soothing properties. Furthermore, chamomile, lavender and tea tree essential oils, known for their antiseptic and antibacterial properties, are added along with rose absolute for their fragrance and their ability to reduce redness and irritation.

To me, this soap is very heavily scented with lavender, so not a soap I would want to use on my body. However, as a hand soap, I was extremely pleased with the results. 

After my first use, I noticed that Putty In Your Hands was a lot different to normal soap for many reasons. Firstly, instead of foaming up in your hand, this soap actually feels more like you're rubbing oils between your palms, which goes on to soften and heal those weathered and chapped fingers. It was a strange experience at first but one that I quickly got used to. 

Secondly, it leaves your skin feeling really smooth and clean, without leaving any sticky residue or drying your hands out. It made a noticeable difference almost immediately, and I found that I wasn't able to go back to normal hand soap because of how much the condition of my mitts had improved.

The only aspect about this soap that was a problem, was that the bar tended to crumble quite a bit after a few uses, and I ended up with a pile of oat-sized pieces, which were difficult to keep 100% dry in the bathroom. My piece of soap was a few months old though, so perhaps with a fresher piece, this wouldn't be a problem.

For someone who hardly ever uses hand soap, and instead opts for a squirt of their shower gel, this soap has convinced me that a lot of good can come from using this regularly. Within three days of using this, my hands had completely cleared up and looked healthier than they'd done in a while. This is definitely going to be a regular product in my household.

Quantitative Ingredients: Cornflour, Talc, Glycerine, Water, Marshmallow Mucilage, Whole Oats, Fair Trade Shea Butter, Lavender Oil, Chamomile Blue Oil, Tea Tree Oil, Rose Absolute, Citronellol, Limonene, Linalool, Perfume.

Vegan?: Yes.

2015 Price: £3.10 for 100g.