It is high time to get the skin and hoofs ready for the spring weather, and I’ve just the thing if either your body skin (there’s a horrible phrase) or your feet aren’t feeling as supple as they might. I’m talking really dry here — come back next week if you already feel magnificently hydrated.
I’d forgotten all about Lotil until I came across it again. The rush was Proustian, which I’ll get to in a minute. Mostly I love Lotil because it is one of those completely no-nonsense products that does what it sets out to do brilliantly. It doesn’t make insane promises, its packaging is entirely sober and utilitarian, it’s gloriously inexpensive (£3.50 a tube) and it’s highly effective. You would think that the world was full of products like this, but you’d be wrong — when you wade through as many oceans of wildly overpriced, overpromising, overdesigned, overpackaged offerings as I do, you are ridiculously grateful to find the occasional unassuming little gem. I say “find” — Lotil has been around for about 100 years so I’m hardly breaking new ground, but the problem with the unassuming gems is that they sit there modestly, not making any noise, and are therefore easy to overlook or forget about.
Anyway: what we have here is a magnificently effective moisturiser for very dry skin, wherever that dry skin happens to be (although there is also an excellent foot cream if that’s the issue). For everything else (including feet, tbh) there’s the original moisturiser, called Moisturising Cream for Dry Skin (£3.50; boots.com) because that’s what it is. It sorts out dry hands like actual magic — I keep a tube next to the Fairy liquid — and is enormously helpful if you have dry knees or elbows. But really it’s a superlative general moisturiser. I haven’t tried it on my face, but I don’t see why you shouldn’t if it’s painfully dry. It can also help with psoriasis, eczema or if you have dry skin because of diabetes.
My Proustian rush came because of the scent of this product, which literally made me grunt with pleased recognition. However: it won’t be to everyone’s taste. What you get first is a blast of almond glue. I’m never sure if people know what I mean when I say almond glue. But if you had stiff, white school glue in a little pot that came with a small pliable applicator and it smelt rather like marzipan and you just wanted to stick your nose in it all day long — that’s the scent.
So the lovely almondy gluey smell, which fades quite quickly, and then — be still my beating heart — another scent fades in, which is kind of serious, medicinal and quite camphorous, a bit like coal tar soap before it was reformulated. To me the ghost of the almond mixed with the coal tarish fragrance is heaven, plus it makes me feel like the cream is working like a donkey, which it is: you are so, so soft afterwards. It is also lightly medicated, which is particularly useful if you’re doing something where your hands (or knees, or wherever) are liable to be scratched, like gardening. A wonder in a tube.
