L’Occitane Ultra Soft Balm for International Women’s Day 2016

Every year to mark International Women's Day, L'Occitane launches an exclusive solidarity product to support women in developing countries. This year, International Women's Day falls on March 8th. This year, L'Occitane has chosen to focus on women in Burkina Faso, a relationship which has been developing for the last 30 years. Fast forward to today and a partnership which started with just 12 local women has now developed into an enterprise of over 17,000 women which is truly astonishing, and it is those women produce the Shea Butter, an ingredient which features in so many of L'Occitane's award winning collections and an ingredient that my skin absolutely loves.

L'Occitane has its own global programme Women for Burkina which has three main objectives: to assist in literacy, to provide access to micro-loans and to promote entrepreneurial actions. Only ONE our of five women in Burkino Faso today knows how to read and write. Since 2010, 900 women have gained access to literacy programmes sponsored by the L'Occitane Foundation and more than 6,000 women have gained access to the micro-loans. These micro-loans help women to develop an activity that generates money for their households.

How can you help?  As I mentioned, each year, L'Occitane launches an exclusive solidarity product to support women in developing countries and this year it is the Ultra-soft Balm, 100%* of the profits will go to fund these special projects.  This Shea Butter Balm is a rose scented multi-purpose moisturiser and it can be used on your lips, your body especially cuticles, elbows and knees and it can also be used on your hair.  It smells just absolutely divine and comes presented inside this beautifully decorated motif tin which is said to have been designed symbolise the wax-print fabrics worn by Burkinabe women and is a symbol of festivity and tradition which is deep-rooted in African Cultural Heritage.

The tin is a perfect size for chucking in your handbag and it costs just £4 right here.  I am sure that on Women's Day there will be snippets of information about famous women who have all done their bit, but what I love about this project, is the idea of being able to champion women who have quite possibly changed more lives than we will ever appreciate by working hard to do so.

Will you be buying a tin?

*Sales price in store minus taxes, transport and production costs.

Patisserie de Bain Handcream Collection

Looking after my hands is as important to me as looking after any other part of my body. Your hands play such an important and vital role in life, that sometimes they need a little bit of love and attention. Whether you are using them to gesticulate, write, type, washing up, clean or even make food, your hands are hard at work for hours and hours everyday.

Patisserie de Bain offers a cute little hand cream collection of mouth-watering sounding creams which sound as though you want to eat them.  Each hand cream contains Shea Butter and Glycerine to help moisturise and soothe those poor hard working hands. I am one of those people who loves hand cream and goes through tubes of it every year. On my desk at work there is no less than 4 tubes at any one time, each promising to do something different. I am also quite partial to a hand scrub and I shared a new one from Lush just a few days ago here on my blog.

Those three scents are:

• Sweet as Cherry Pie is just stunning. It smell reminds me of fresh ripe cherries that have just been cooked in a pie as it happens and in the background is a slight sprinkling of vanilla to add to the sweetness.
• Cranberries and Cream is quite a sweet scent, much sweeter than I had anticipated and the fruity scent you associate with Cranberries is most definitely present with the cream part being much more dominant than in Sweet as Cherry Pie
• Sugar Rose is perhaps my favourite of the three, it combines rosehip, grapes and sugar cane which is just heavenly and for me the right sweetness to not be too vanilla based or too perfumed.

Priced at just £9.99 for this little set, it is a lovely treat for your hands or indeed someone elses.  Each tube is 50ml and can be purchased separately for just £3.99.