I am a ceramicist. I wash my hands constantly — before throwing, after throwing, between glazing stages, after cleaning the studio, before eating, after eating in the studio when I should not have been eating in the studio. On a busy day I wash my hands fifteen or twenty times. This is not unusual for someone who works with clay and glaze materials, but it does mean that the hand wash I use matters considerably more than it might for someone with a more desk-based life.
For years I used whatever was cheapest and largest at the supermarket. The result was predictable: dry, tight hands by mid-afternoon, cracked knuckles in winter, and a persistent low-level irritation that I had accepted as an occupational inevitability. I had tried various moisturising hand washes that claimed to be gentle and found most of them either ineffective at cleaning or ineffective at moisturising, rarely both.
The I Love Naturals Bergamot and Seaweed Hand Wash changed my expectations of what a hand wash could do.
What I Was Looking For
My requirements were specific. Effective cleaning — I work with clay and glaze materials that require proper removal, not just a surface rinse. Genuinely gentle on skin that is washed repeatedly throughout the day. No synthetic fragrance, which I find overwhelming in an enclosed studio space. And ideally a scent that was pleasant enough to make the frequent washing feel like something other than a chore.
The vegan and cruelty-free credentials were also important to me — I try to make considered choices about the products I use, and a hand wash I use twenty times a day is worth getting right on that front as well as the practical one.
Why the I Love Naturals Bergamot and Seaweed
The I Love Naturals Bergamot and Seaweed Hand Wash met every criterion. Over 90% naturally derived ingredients — not a marketing claim but a formulation commitment that means the cleaning agents and conditioning ingredients are plant-based rather than synthetic. Vegan and cruelty-free. And the scent: bergamot, seaweed, orange, and basil essential oils, which together create something that is fresh and slightly marine without being sharp or synthetic. It is the kind of scent that is present without being intrusive — noticeable when you wash your hands, gone within a minute, leaving no residue or lingering fragrance that would interfere with the studio environment.
The seaweed extract is the ingredient that interested me most. Seaweed is rich in minerals and has well-established skin-conditioning properties — it supports the skin's moisture barrier rather than stripping it, which is exactly what a hand wash used twenty times a day needs to do. The combination of effective cleansing with genuine skin conditioning is the thing that most hand washes fail to achieve simultaneously.
I found it through ALTOE's Liquid Hand Soap collection, which is the obvious starting point for anyone comparing natural hand wash options. It also sits within the Bath & Body, Personal Care, and Health & Beauty collections, and the broader Cosmetics section if you want to browse the full range.
The 2 x 500ml format is practical — one bottle at the studio sink, one at the kitchen sink at home. At twenty washes a day in the studio, a 500ml bottle lasts about three weeks, which means the twin pack covers roughly six weeks of studio use. The value is good for a genuinely natural formula.
The First Week: A Noticeable Difference
I noticed the difference within the first week. Not dramatically — not a transformation, but a consistent absence of the tightness and dryness I had been experiencing by mid-afternoon. My hands felt clean after washing without feeling stripped. The knuckles that had been cracking in the cold studio air stopped cracking. By the end of the first week, my hands felt better than they had in months.
The scent also changed my relationship with the frequent washing. Instead of a functional interruption to whatever I was doing, washing my hands became a brief sensory moment — the bergamot and basil, the slight marine quality of the seaweed, the clean rinse. It takes thirty seconds. It is, genuinely, a small pleasure rather than a chore. I had not expected that from a hand wash.
Three Months of Studio Use
I have been using the I Love Naturals Bergamot and Seaweed Hand Wash in my studio for three months. My hands are in better condition than they have been in years — softer, less prone to dryness, no cracking even in cold weather. The formula has performed consistently across the full range of what I wash off: clay slip, glaze materials, general studio grime.
I have also put a bottle at the kitchen sink at home, where my partner — who had been using a standard supermarket soap — switched to it within a week without being asked. He described it as "the one that smells like a spa but actually cleans things." I consider that an accurate and sufficient review.
If you wash your hands frequently and you have been accepting dry, tight skin as the inevitable consequence, the I Love Naturals Bergamot and Seaweed Hand Wash is worth trying. Browse the Liquid Hand Soap collection at ALTOE. The 2 x 500ml twin pack is the one to buy — one for wherever you wash your hands most, one for wherever you wash them second most. The small pleasure compounds across twenty washes a day.
Rosie Pemberton is a ceramicist and studio potter based in Stroud. She writes about the materials and products that make her working life more comfortable, the small rituals that make a studio day feel good, and the things she wishes she had found sooner.
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