L'Occitane Shea Butter Discovery Collection

Every year as soon as the weather starts to get a bit cooler and the central heating goes on, my skin starts to suffer. I generally don’t have too many issues with the skin on my body – it’s not sensitive or fussy and I can normally get away with using any old body moisturiser to add a little bit of extra hydration. In the winter though, it becomes dry and dehydrated and feels irritated, so something heavier and more hydrating is normally needed. This year, I picked up a fabulous little trial kit from L’Occitane, which contains a selection of four different products from their Shea range.

Included in the set is a shower cream (75ml), body lotion (75ml), soap (50g), and two tiny tubes of the brands hand cream (2 x 10ml), and they all come packaged in a rather pretty wash bag. 

Before purchasing the set, the hand cream is the only product I’d actually tried from L’occitane. It’s a product that I’ve purchased many times because I’m always extremely impressed at how well it soothes, hydrates and repairs my horribly dry hands in the Winter. My hands really have been in some horrific states, but L’Occitane’s dry skin hand cream always manages to sort them out, and it does this without leaving a greasy residue (I can’t stand greasy hand creams!). The discovery set contains two small 10ml tubes, the perfect size for popping into your handbag.

L'Occitane Shea Butter Hand Cream

The brand’s Ultra Rich Shower Cream is a detergent free formula and contains 5% Shea Butter, a natural coconut foaming base, and soy proteins. It can be used on both body and hair and it’s designed to leave skin feeling soft and supple. This stuff is an absolute joy to use in the shower. The texture is thick and rich, and it feels incredibly luxurious, smells lovely, and leaves my skin feeling clean, comfortable and hydrated. 

L'Occitane Ultra Rich Shower Cream & Body Lotion

L’Occitane’s Ultra Rich Body Lotion contains 15% Shea Butter (derived directly from the African Shea tree), natural honey and apricot oil. It’s designed to nourish and protect and lift the senses with subtle essences of jasmine and ylang-ylang. Again, the scent of the product is lovely – it’s fresh, subtle and very clean and actually lingers for quite a while after it’s been applied. Like the hand cream from the range, it feels really hydrating as you apply, but doesn’t leave any sort of greasy/sticky residue behind. It sinks in quickly and leaves skin feeling moisturised, soothed and supple. This is probably my favourite product in the set, it’s one of the most hydrating lotions I’ve tried and it even leaves problem areas (knees and elbows) feeling soft and silky smooth.

 

I’m not much of a soap person, so the soap I received in the set was the last item I actually tried. It’s described as extra gentle, is formulated with a 100% vegetable base and is of course, enriched with Shea. Like the other products, this also smells great, creates a lovely creamy lather and leaves skin feeling soft and comfortable. I’ve mainly been using this for hand washing and applying the brand’s hand cream after, and I’m happy to be report that my hands are in great condition at the moment. The two products used together have made a huge different to my hands – no more horrible, red, dry knuckles! 

L'Occitane Shea Butter Extra Gentle Soap

I really have enjoyed using all of the products in the Shea Butter Discovery Collection and have already ordered full sizes of both the shower cream and the body lotion. They really have helped to sooth and moisturise my dehydrated, winter skin and the scents and textures have made them an absolute joy to use. I think the set is pretty good value for money, and the generous mini sizes are a great way of giving the products a good test before purchasing full sizes.

The Shea Discovery Collection is available from escentual where it costs £18.00.