L'Occitane Rose 4 Reines Hand Cream

Firstly, there is no upside to a 20 hr day.  Just so we are clear on that.  However, duty free shopping on Stena Line was a revelation - UD Naked palette on a Ferry crossing the Irish sea? It's worth the foot passenger fare just to pick one up.  They had a load of UD stuff so I treated Em to the Preen palette, needless to say she was rather chuffed!

When I am away at a show my hands really suffer.  We are hauling boxes of magazines, shifting heavy counters, handling some of the filthiest luchre you have ever seen.  Really, farmers tend to keep their cash wadded up in a ball with used tissues, old sweets, a bit of cow or sheep shit depending on where they farm and gad knows what else.  Washing your hands is both a joy and incredibly traumatic, the filth that comes off is disgusting.  Generally made worse by the fact that 10 mins earlier you were eating something.  Without cutlery.  Suspect I am now immune to foot and mouth, scrapey and bovine spongiform encephalopathy as a direct result of ingesting masses of all of them over the years! So I decided to treat myself to this on the ferry home.

They say:
Enriched in shea butter and vitamin E, this cream nourishes, protects and helps repair hands from daily aggressions.
Hands are moisturized and delicately perfumed with the fresh and velvety fragrance of the Grasse, Bulgarian, Moroccan and Turkish roses.

I say:
I could eat this with a spoon.

It is the most delicious hand cream I have ever used with a full on, incredibly intoxicating rose perfume that lasts for ages. To my nose there is nothing "delicate" about this perfume, its not the demure, fresh rain, clean scent of English rose but the proper, gutsy, bawdy, head filling wallop of all those massively perfumed roses, so strong a smell you can taste it, a wanton hand cream if you will, a ho for your hands! I now want the entire range.  

But most especially the Rose Nuit de Mai edt:
 The Nuit de Mai Eau de Toilette evokes the atmosphere of those May festivities with a floral woody sensuality. The fragrance opens with the fresh and delicate note of wild rose, heightened by cinnamon. At its heart, a bunch of May roses blends with the delicious accord of violet and blackberry. Lingering woody base notes reveal the captivating scents of sandalwood, cedar and vanilla.
Rose with woody base notes? Dear god sounds like heaven in a bottle.

I paid £13.50 duty free for the hand cream, its £13 on the L'Occitane website!