The Body Shop Almond Hand & Nail Overnight Manicure Butter (+ NOTD!)

It seems that I can pretty easily separate my adolescent years into phases based on my allegiances to different "personal care" shops. In elementary school, it was the ever-popular Bath and Body Works. By high school, I'd become hip to the artsy whimsy of Lush. Middle school, however, was all about the Body Shop. The simplest and most no-frills of them all, it offered single-note fragrances across a wide variety of products, all priced just right to drain a 13-year-old's stash of birthday money. Their strawberry body butter was basically my entire reason for living in 8th grade, along with the green tea lotion and moringa "body milk" (or, in layman's terms, an extra-thin lotion that left me smelling like a delicate li'l flower). After discovering Lush in my freshman year of high school, I left the Body Shop, which seemed so pedestrian by comparison, in the dust. Now that Lush has gone more mainstream, retiring most of my favorite products and raising prices to unjustifiable heights, I figured it was about time to return to my old reliable.

This is the Almond Hand & Nail Overnight Manicure Butter. What a name! I can't be the only one with a soft spot for frivolous specialty items like this. For someone as obsessed with their nails as I am (and struggling with dry hands during the winter), this was a no-brainer. Since my purchase in December, it appears that this has been discontinued, as it is no longer visible on the Body Shop website. However, it can still be found elsewhere for just about retail price ($20), and I'd imagine that some locations still have leftover stock. They also offer a cream formulation in a squeeze tube, though I haven't tried it and am unsure of how similar it is to this product.

I can hear you already: "wow, $20 is pretty steep for a 3.3 oz. tub of gunk". I would be inclined to agree with you, but in all reality, a little goes a long way. I've been using it a bit more liberally than I typically would because I recently came to a realization: I don't think I've ever finished any of my lotions. I'm entirely too precious with them, using them so sparingly that I either forget about them or they spoil before I can use them all up. I'm pretty sure my aforementioned vat of strawberry body butter is still sitting around somewhere, several years past its expiration date, collecting dust. I should probably find it and toss it...

but anyway, yes, you don't need much of this to get the desired effect. And you will desire the effect once you try it, believe me. This stuff is extremely thick in consistency – if you are familiar with their body butters, it's about the same – so you will really only want to use this as an overnight treatment. Gloves may be a good idea if you don't feel like smearing it all over your bedding, because it will not sink in before you fall asleep. I applied it the other night during one of my bouts of insomnia, and it hadn't even gotten close to drying down in the hour I spent tossing and turning. The tradeoff, though? The softest, silkiest hands you've ever had. Babies wish their butts were this smooth. I can't vouch for its effect on the nails, though I'd imagine it's good – cocoa seed oil, shea butter, and sweet almond oil all sound very promising, in addition to providing a lovely almond fragrance. Even if it does diddly for my nails, it still stands as a phenomenal hand cream. A day and several hand-washes later, my skin still feels significantly more moisturized than it did before I used it. No more dry, flaky hands catching on my sweaters! I feel so pampered and nourished.

To close out this post, I figured I'd share what's currently on my nails: Zoya Frida. This polish is so weird and I love it. I'm immediately into anything that can be described as “unlike anything in my collection", and such is the case for dear Frida. It's a murky medium teal jelly that will never, ever be opaque – this is 4 coats, and I'd estimate that you'd need about 7 before your nail line was obscured. Something about the combination of the jelly finish (my favorite) and the offbeat color just really, really works for me. I imagine some might call this "ugly-pretty" or "so bad it's good", but not me. I'm just honestly, unironically in love with this. And in love for what it means coming from Zoya – I'm always impressed when bigger brands take chances on experimental colors. Clearly it paid off, seeing as they’ve been producing this shade for over a decade now. I hope they never stop! 

And until next time... peace out!