Love me tender - hand cream discontinued by Bella Il Fiore - review by Jul!a

While initially designed as a hand specific cream, there's nothing wrong with using this lotion everywhere you want to smell like it. The bottle claims that it's "a luxurious healing formulation created just for the hands. A unique blend of vitamins, shea butter, and aloe vera absorbs effortlessly into the hands leaving them soft and smooth."

The 8 ounce bottle is nice to look at and doesn't have anything risque at all, so you can easily leave it out. The front says that it's a hand creme, and lists the scent as Almond Coconut. The pump top is very convenient for just pumping and going, without having to worry about accidentally getting lotion all over the bottle if you decide you want more after you've started. The back also lists the ingredients as aloe barbadensis leaf juice, octyl palmitate, squalane, glycerin, sorbitol, cetyl alcohol, cetearyl alcohol, dimethicone, cyclomethicone, butyrospermum parkii (shea) butter, ceteareth 20, hyaluronic acid, anthemis nobilis (chamomile) flower extract, calendula officialis flower extract, arnica montana flower extract, symphytum officinale (comfrey) rhizome/root extract, echinacea angustifolia extract, tocopheryl acetate, retinyl palmitate, allantoin, panthenol, stearic acid, xanthan gum, carbomer, phenoxyethanol, ethylhexyglycerin, triethanolamine, fragrance.

The lotion comes out very easily and feels like most other regular lotions I've encountered. It all smooths in easily and sinks in nicely, but always leaves my hands feeling like I want to wipe them off. At least initially. If being used as an all over lotion, that's not the end of the world. But as something that's supposed to be just for my hands, that bothers me. Some applications leave me feeling more greasy than others, but if I wait a few minutes it seems to just go away for the most part. I'm just impatient and have a thing about textures on my hands.

It seems to do a good job at being moisturizing, although if you have persistently dry skin you'll have to reapply on a somewhat regular basis. It will leave your skin feeling smooth, and also scented like the lotion, which is listed as almond coconut. To me, it smells a lot like a nice mix between the two, being somewhat sweet and somewhat tropical and making me think of umbrella drinks on a beach. The scent is definitely what I would consider strong (coming from somebody who likes strong scents), so those with really sensitive noses may want to avoid it. It will also last you most of the day and be easily detected within a few feet, but most likely not from across the room unless you've just put it on.

I really do like the scent of this lotion, but it's just a bit too greasy for me to really be able to enjoy on a consistent basis, and I don't end up using it because I don't want to wait forever to stop feeling freshly lotioned. Well, I'm exaggerating a bit. My problem is that I can really feel it on my hands when I'm done, and for a long time afterwards and that just bothers the heck out of me. My mom doesn't seem to have the same problem that I do with it, and has happily offered to take it off my hands.