A side effect of my medication is prolonged bouts of insomnia, once I get to sleep I stay asleep but it's nodding off that I have trouble with. I was looking in the Avon book when I came across a small section within the Wellbeing range containing sleep aid products, the Sleep Balm sounded nice enough and I thought at least if it didn't work I'd have a nice solid lavender scented perfume to wear.

It's a nice pot, the balm sits inside a cute little glass pot with a plastic screw off lid. I was pleased about this as I have a Lush lip balm which comes in a metal tin with metal lid, this is impossible to open when the arthritis has flared up in my fingers. I can envisage no such problems with this pot and it looks attractive on my dressing table amongst the lip balms and various jars, bottles and tubes.

To use this Sleep Balm you have to rub a very small amount into either your temples or your wrists and it will apparently gently soothe your senses and help bring on a restful sleep. My sister, and Avon lady, bought my order round at around 9.30pm and after having a cup of tea with her I had a warm bath and settled down with the balm in bed.

I had already decided that I was going to rub it on both my temples AND wrists to hopefully aid the process, but was dismayed to find that this balm is terribly greasy with a consistency almost like semi-melted lard. I rubbed a little bit onto the inside of my wrist and hate how slimy it felt, it's impossible to rub in completely as it's too heavy for my skin to absorb so I was left with a thin smear of grease.

Not to be put off I used it on the other wrist and my temples, keeping it well away from my hair line, and settled down to read for a few minutes with a relaxing mug of hot chocolate.

To cut a long story short a 4am I got out of bed to wash the mug. The Sleep Balm had absolutely no effect at all on my sleeping and actually I think it caused me even more sleep destroying stress because I kept thinking about the greasy feeling where the balm had been applied!

Over the next few nights I tried this balm in differing quantities and applied on various parts of my arms, face and neck. No joy whatsoever, on the fourth night I fell asleep as soon as I got into bed but that was simply because I was shattered and nothing at all to do with the Sleep Balm.

Because of the greasy feeling there is no way I could wear it as a perfume as it's just to heavy on my skin. I could not bear to wear it all day even though the fragrance is quite nice, although probably it's not strong enough or long lasting enough a scent to really be used as a perfume anyway.

It's a subtle sweet lavender smell, certainly not the vibrant scent of fresh lavender I had been expecting which would probably have relaxed me more on the whole. It's quite a sugary scent and barely there at all, nowhere near strong enough for me to actually smell it in bed after the first minute or two even though the greasy feeling lasted for a long time.

The 10ml pot costs £2.50 which would be a fantastic price if it actually worked, as it is I think this Sleep Balm is an absolute waste of money. In fact I gave my pot away in a bag of cosmetics and skin care items on Freecycle today, poor lady I hope she doesn't pin her hopes on this one!