You’ve seen the upside of being minorly obsessed with the smell of lavender – striking upon a product as nice as this. So now here’s the downside – G. Field Lavender Hand Cream.
You might be used to supermarkets cramming the area by the checkouts with sweeties and chocolates, trying to entice you into a quickie impulse buy. This hand cream was the beauty junkie’s equivalent, located temptingly by the tills at Bonjour (HK’s one stop beauty-shop where it’s probably best not to ask how they manage to get their branded cosmetics so cheaply). At just $18, it was a case of buy now, regret it later – literally.
In Hong Kong, it’s pretty common to carry a tube of hand cream around in your handbag. Be it the drying effects of spending too much time under air-cons, finding a use for the Crabtree & Evelyn box sets that are invariably bandied about at Christmas or just pure vanity, who knows but ever since my hands fell apart after a year at kindergarten, I’ve found myself joining the hand cream crowd. These pocket-sized tubes seemed perfect for that very purpose and as soon as I saw the lavender scent, I was sold.
G Field also reckoned it was manufactured in France. I was optimistically crossing my fingers for a budget-style L’Occitane experience but sadly, this was pure bargain-bin, with the emphasis on ‘bin’, stuff.
The consistency of the lotion was watery, took a while to sink in and once it did, felt like it had never been applied in the first place. What’s more, the lavender scent was distinctly unpleasant. Artificial and pungent, I was getting comments about it all day – for the wrong reasons! The ingredients list maintained that real lavender oil was used in the formula, but it smelt like detergent that had seen better days. And my hands felt no less dry than they had to begin with.
Only $18? Alas, it’s only a bargain if you actually use it. My G. Field Lavender Hand Cream is now busy moisturising cockroaches in a landfill somewhere and, what with there being plenty of cheaper, more effective and more pleasantly scented lotions on the market, I’ll definitely be thinking twice before making my next checkout impulse grab. Unless there’s something lavender-scented, of course…
G. Field Lavender Hand Cream, $18 for 38ml, Bonjour
Through The Looking Glass 