Come on Burt and Res-Q me! (Burt's Bees Res-Q Ointment)

Member Name: pink_glitter

Product:	Burt's Bees Res-Q Ointment
Date:	03/10/08 (206 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: mostly natural, soothes minor injuries quickly

Disadvantages: not effective on older injuries like bruises

Had I written this review this time last week, I would have been a lot more negative about this product, but after an unfortunate incident involving a door handle (read on!) my opinion of this product has completely changed.

I got a travel sized pot of Burt's Bees Res-Q ointment in their outdoor remedy kit a couple of months back, it is probably not a product I would ever have chosen to buy individually.

I think one of the main downsides of the product is working out what you are supposed to use it for! The back of the tin tells me to 'For all of life's discomforts, naturally soothe skin...' from that I still wasn't quite sure about what I was supposed to do with it, so I had to have a quick check of the Burt's Bees website. This tells me that after any minor injury, I should clean the skin, and then apply a layer of this salve to them twice a day until they feel better.

The Res-Q ointment is made with 95.7% natural ingredients, including olive oil, sweet almond oil, beeswax, comfrey root extract, vitamin E and lavender oil amongst other things.

It comes in a green tin, featuring a black and white drawing of a bearded man in a hat, whom I can only assume must be Burt! The product itself comes in the form of a sort of balm, and is a dark green in colour. The main scent of the product seems to be the lavender , but it has quite herbal undertones, and for someone who is not particularly keen on the scent of lavender, I actually quite like the smell.

I am quite an accident prone person to start with, so I always have a bruise or two that needs to be treated, so had been applying this over bruises to start with. I had done this for quite a few weeks, and never really found that this seemed to do anything for them, so had come to the conclusion that it wasn't doing anything for my skin.

It was one night earlier in the week, when I managed to walk into the bathroom door handle that my opinion changed. The door handle is waist height, and I don't know how, but I have managed to walk into it several times, but this time I was doubled up in pain and had a huge red mark where it had jabbed me in the stomach! It really hurt, and although it wasn't so bad I felt the need to resort to a painkiller, I found that I couldn't sleep for the constant discomfort - it just felt like my skin was raw. I noticed the Burt's Bees Res-Q ointment on my bedside table, and decided to give it a try.

I rubbed my finger in the green balm, and rubbed it over the red line that had appeared on my stomach. It glides easily onto the skin, but needs a little bit of rubbing in, otherwise it will leave a green mark. It felt instantly cool on my skin, and to my surprise within less than a minute, the irritating discomfort had completely disappeared.

Around 3 or 4 hours later, I found that my skin was beginning to feel sore again, so I reapplied the Res-Q ointment. Again, almost immediately my skin felt soothed. This stuff really is a little miracle!

A full sized tin of this ointment costs £4.79 from www.naturallyfabulous.co.uk or you can also buy it in Fenwick's.

As I found, the ointment does not really seem to do much for bruises, however on newer, minor injuries, it does provide an instant soothing effect to the skin, and I'd prefer to apply a bit of this, knowing that it is mostly natural, rather than some chemical-laden stuff from a chemist.

Summary: Res-Q ointment from Burt's Bees