Product Placement

Apparently, according to our beloved experts, what’s on your desk says a lot about you. In fact a ‘study’ (yes, I read stuff) claimed it could reveal the true personality, habits and ambitions of the desk’s owner. So cast your eye around your own workspace (as IKEA would call it), and take a minute to become your own ‘expert’. I’m going to do it too, don’t worry.

Item 1 is an open copy of Grazia magazine. What does this say about me? That I’m not really concentrating on my job? That I’m terribly fashionable? That I needed something with a slightly absorbent texture to lay my coronation chicken sandwich on? You decide. Item 2 is a toilet roll. And this tells us what: that I bring my own Andrex Aloe Vera from home because the office paper just isn’t good enough for my backside? Or that said sandwich is quite runny and the deli didn’t give me a napkin? You’ll never know. Thankfully, item 3 is easy, and leads us seamlessly as ever into this week’s test-fest: a tube of hand cream. Which tells you that I do not want to reach fifty with a face like my toddler’s backside but hands like Mrs Haversham. Do you? No? Then read on.

My very kind sister always pushes the product boat out at birthdays and Christmas and recently got me a fabulous hand cream: Fresh Verbena by a French brand called La Compagnie de Provence (available at John Lewis and online). Of course I then had to have a nose at the rest of their range which includes hand soaps, body lotions and the like in similarly delicious fragrances such as Cherry Blossom, Pure Fig and Wild Rose. Prices range from £9.50 to £13.95 and the packaging is nice too. I’d go so far as to say Vive La France.

Next up was The Body Shop’s Soft Hands Kind Heart Hand Cream (£5), which has a lovely texture, and a sweet smell. Slightly perfumey, but made up for by the fact that a whopping £3.45 of the cost is donated to ECPAT, who are actively working to stop the trafficking and sexual exploitation of children and young people in the UK and around the world. Can’t say fairer than that.

Right, time to get pricey. One of my all-time had cream favourites is Clarins Hand & Nail Treatment Cream (£16.50), partly because of the lovely Clarins smell and texture, and partly because it’s one of the few creams I’ve tested that lives up to its claim of strengthening your nails. So you can justify the price by considering it as two products in one. I think.

Now, how much can one sensibly spend on a hand cream? Is £32.30 too much? That’s OK, you can get the smaller tube for £16.65, but you still have to discover Jurlique. They are an Australian company who source all their ingredients from their own self-sustaining biodynamic farm. But there are no soggy oatmeal scrubs here, just lots of gorgeous smelling, effective products, like their lavender hand cream I was raving about just then. Definitely worth a look. Now, if you don’t mind I’ve got a coronation chicken sandwich here that’s oozing onto a story about Jennifer Aniston…