Velveteen hand creme - hand cream by Cake Beauty - review by Kira (stainedclear)

Cake's hand cremes nourish and moisturize hands, leaving soft skin in their path. They make two versions, one in the Milk Made scent and one in UnSweet. UnSweet in unscented and un-colored for those with sensitive skin. It's also a good option for scent sensitive or those who just don't care for the Milk Made scent.

UnSweet hand creme is in a league of its own in the hand creme world. It works fast to repair damaged hands. If your hands are already soft, it may soften them up even a little more. During harsh winter months it will protect them from winds and cold weather. During the summer it protects skin from drying out in the heat. Soft hands are always in season and there's no better way to get soft hands fast than with Cake's hand creme.

Cake's big advertisement is that they are paraben free. This is indeed true, but even their UnSweet version has a few ingredients that aren't exactly the best. You should check the listing for any possible sensitivities or allergies.

UnSweet hand creme is very lightweight. It's lighter than Cake's Supreme Body Mousse formula. It creates a very thin layer of lotion when applied. Well, it is noticeably a creme over a lotion. It has a thickness to it despite being so lightweight. It is thick enough not to drip if you put it on your hand and flip it over. It coats the skin in this layer of lightweight creme when applied.

It feels like silk to put on. It is smooth and, well, creamy. It is soft to run in between the fingers and you can feel the hydration in the formula before you even begin to rub it in. It comes out of the container easily.

When applied, it does not leave behind any gross residue on the hands. It doesn't feel greasy or sticky. Instead, you can feel a slight slick feel to the hands. You'll know you applied a lotion, but it doesn't leave that same lotion feel that many lotions do. It's a thicker and nicer feeling than most hand cremes I have tried. It absorbs completely in under ten minutes at which point you will no longer feel any remains of the lotion - just soft skin.

Where some lotions will leave residue on clothing if you touch anywhere after application, you can rub your hands on black pants right after application of this creme and nothing comes off.

Here you can see the creme in my hand both flat and on a tilt:

UnSweet is unscented. That of course doesn't mean it smells like absolutely nothing. It smells a bit like the chemicals that are in it, sadly. If you've ever had anything "unscented" before, that's the smell I'm talking about. It smells like chemicals to me, but maybe it smells different to you.

I do have the UnSweet Body Mousse in addition to this and the scent on the hand creme is much closer to being unscented. Where the Body Mousse smells strongly of chemicals, the hand creme has only a very light chemical scent. In fact, you'd really have to hold you hands to your face to notice the smell and even then it's not overpowering. Even when I sniff the tube itself, I can't get a strong odor out of it. The light "unscented lotion" smell fades in seconds.

I got this and the Milk Made hand creme at the same time. When I started using them, my hands were cracked and dry. I wash my hands multiple times a day (because I'm a germ-a-phobe) which causes extremely dry skin often to the point of bleeding. Withing a few short days of using this product, my hands were like new hands. They were soft to the touch and all the cracking was gone. I said in the Milk Made hand creme review that I really wish I would have taken some before and after photos to show the dramatic difference in my hands just to prove how awesome this product performs.

It lasts for hours. If I find a good hand creme, I want to apply it every hour or so. For testing, I decided to see how long I could go without applying. I made it a good four hours before reapplying and my hands still felt hydrated from the last application. That four hour reapply was more because I wanted to apply it again than an actual need to reapply.

Perhaps what makes me really think this is the Best Hand Creme Ever is the way it feels. I'm a touch sensitive person and I don't like if things feel gross in any way, especially on my hands. I've found a lot of hand cremes that worked well for my cracked hands but I couldn't stand the way they felt. UnSweet (and Milk Made) Hand Creme blend both worlds perfectly in terms of performance and feel. I have never once had my hands feel gross from this product. In fact, for this review I applied about five layers of product and finally started to get a slightly "too thick" feel. It's really hard to make this product not feel awesome.

What's the difference between this and Milk Made? Pretty much just the smell and a few ingredients. They work exactly the same. Milk Made is a tiny bit thinner, which you can see if you apply them side by side. It's not something you'll notice if you use one and then the other right behind it. If you're trying to decide between the two, you're just picking which scent you want. Here's the consistency difference with Milk Made to the left and UnSweet to the right. Milk Made is also colored, so it appears slightly pink.

The only packaging is the tube it comes in. The front of the tube says "Cake UnSweet" and "some days you're just sweet enough" in French and English (since Cake is based in Canada. It says "Velveteen Hand Creme." The back has a blurb about the product and what it does and an ingredient listing. It also has information on how to get in touch with Cake.





Cake packaging is oh so cute and girly. It's all done in pink and mint green, a lovely color combo.

The ingredients are:

Water/Eau (Aqua), Glycerin, Cetyl alcohol, Glyceryl stearate, Cetearyl alcohol, Ceteareth-20, Dimethicone, Stearic acid, Althaea officinalis (marchmallow) extract, Milk Lipid, Mangifera indica (Mango) seed butter, Butryrospermum parkii (Shea butter), Phenoxyethanol, Caprylyl glycol, Sorbic acid, Carbomer, Sodium hydroxide, Tetrasodium EDTA

Note: This ingredient list comes from the back of the package and differs from Eden's listing with the inclusion of the Shea butter.

Glycerin - Colorless, odorless liquid. Used to improve smoothness.

Cetyl Alcohol - A fatty alcohol. Used as thickening agent.

Ceteareth-20 - Made from cetearyl alcohol. Used to decrease thickness of liquid.

Dimethicone - Silicone. Lubricant.

Stearic Acid - Saturated fatty acid. Softening agent.

Phenoxyethanol - A glycol ether. Preservative.

Caprylyl Glycol - Can be plant derived or synthetic. Preservative.

Sorbic Acid - Natural organic compound. Preservative.

Carbomer - A series of polymers primarily made from acrylic acid. Helps to keep oil and liquid from separating.

Sodium Hydroxide - A caustic metallic base. Potential irritant.

Tetrasodium EDTA - A chelating agent. Used to decrease reactivity of metal ions.

If they didn't go on about being a "natural" company, I'd just accept the ingredient listing as yucky but tolerable. Since they insist upon advertising natural ingredients and how great it is that they are paraben free (which I am happy about), I put a little extra scrutiny on the not so great listing there.

This hand creme is awesome and everyone should try it. If you don't like the Milk Made scent or scents in general, the UnSweet is the way to go. Really, the only reason not to try this is if you have an allergy or sensitivity to one of the ingredients. I know the ingredient list isn't the nicest, but the performance of the product is worth the gross ingredients (at least to me).

I couldn't be happier with this product. I have spent years looking for a good hand creme. My poor hands are ragged from me washing them so often. The problem is that everything that works feels too thick on my skin and I just can't use it. When I ordered the Cake Hand Cremes, I wasn't sure what to expect. Another hand creme failure, perhaps?

The first time I put this on, I was in love. Even if it didn't work as well as some other cremes, I knew this would be the hand creme I would use. Lucky for me, about two days into using this my hands were transformed. No more cracked skin, no more dry flakes. My hands were soft and smooth and just...wow! I swear my husband hates Cake because he has to hear me say "touch my skin!" all day now.

I generally use the UnSweet and Milk Made randomly. The Milk Made is my favorite because I adore the smell, but the UnSweet is just as good. When I run out, I will likely restock both scents. Unscented things are always good to have, especially if you have perfumes that conflict with the scented cremes.