Dior Apricot Cream for Nails Review

It’s strange what we categorise as affordable luxuries. I have spent much more on lesser beauty products than this, but somehow the $49 for a little pot of cream for my cuticles was just never a pill I was happy to swallow. Finally, after pining away for it for years, and suddenly needing a serious helping ‘hand’ (sorry) for my newly-sad nails , I took the plunge.

Coming to the end of 2022, my nails are in the worst shape of my life. It’s been a year of more or less non-stop salon gel application and, even more relevantly to my not-entirely-scientific theory, salon gel removal. The nail spot I have been going to takes a quick and dirty approach to removal, applying acetone for mere moments and then coming in with an electric drill to ‘buff’ – read, annihilate – the remaining gel polish off. (I know, I know, the phrase ‘electric drill’ in relation to a manicure immediately makes you think of pampering, care, attention and, ultimately, optimal nail health. What did I have to worry about?) I am convinced that not only was my nail polish blasted off, but so were several layers of good, healthy nail plate. In October, as if to double down on my poor nail decisions, I went the full hog and had an entire set of acrylics applied, in a bid to have the Hayley Bieber glazed doughnut nails of my dreams. That, seemingly, was the icing on my poor nails’ Cake O’ Destruction.

So, having banished my thick fake nails in November, in their place were the remnants of my own real ones – papery thin, bendable, and laughably weak. No, really. I had a moment of claustrophobic panic when I couldn’t remove my mouthguard one morning because my nails couldn’t even begin to dislodge it. As someone who has always had fast growing, strong, capable nails (what an odd body part to feel proud of. ‘Ooh, well done, Colonel Index Finger Talon. Another can opened, and with such speed and reliability!), I didn’t know what to do. Cuticle care was not a beauty category I had ever really paid attention to. My years of at-home manis, prior to my crazy twelve months of salon gel, were much more about ensuring things were neat and tidy than really paying attention to nail health.

A very speedy explanation for any nail newbies as to why taking care of my cuticles was relevant to my papery nails: the cuticle is a type of barrier that protects the area where the new nail growth happens, so healthy cuticles help to ensure healthy new nails. On average, it takes about six months for a nail to fully regrow from ‘root’ to tip, so keeping my cuticles in tip top shape over the next six months would hopefully give me the best chance at making that new nail growth be its very best.

When a David Jones birthday voucher for $10 slipped into my email inbox, then, it seemed like beauty kismet. I decided this product, which had long been a source of fascination finally needed to be mine… in the name of urgent nail rehabilitation, you understand.

As you can see in the image above, this is an incredibly syrupy, unctuous product. Thankfully some clever packaging boffin at Dior has ensured that beneath the lovely, embossed white cap is a thick foil seal to trap all of the cream inside the pot, prior to purchase, but once removed, this was what I was faced with. Not entirely neat and tidy, but it did spill out in such a way as it felt like it was begging to be used, which in my dire circumstances was quite pleasing. Straight onto my poor little paws it went.

I know we beauty writer types love to say ‘you only need the tiniest bit’ of insert-product-name-here-but-usually-something-very-expensive, but truly, this cream might be the very definition of ‘less is more’. It’s thick to the point of being sticky, and yet very emollient, so I like to just dip one index finger into the pot, and then from there apply a dab to all ten nails, which usually leaves me with a little left over. Given the potential mess factor, I strongly recommend night time application, so you can let it soak in as you sleep. I do now have the odd apricot spot on my silk pillowcases, but it seems like a small price to pay for the effect it has had on my harrowed hands. Using this, you don’t even have to regularly undertake any additional, diligent cuticle maintenance (which, if you’re anything like me, usually translates to hacking away with scrapers and pliers, leaving things far worse than you found them). This is the only product I have ever used which leaves the cuticles themselves, as well as the skin around your nails, which are so prone to getting manky and dry, looking and feeling as groomed and gorgeous as when you have your hands expertly attended to. Strong, healthy nails are sure to follow (please, for the sake of mouthguard wearers everywhere).