Boots Fresh! Range > Reviews (3)

As those who are unfortunate enough to know me will tell you, these days, I'm a bit of a 'natural' freak when it comes to products (strangely enough that hasn't yet extended to sweeties and chocolate)! Hence, I use organic veg wherever possible, our pizzas are freshly-made from hand rolled dough and we use fresh, natural products rather than mass-produced toppings, which is why people prefer the taste. Similarly, when it comes to medicine, I have studied homeopathy and always select natural remedies where possible.

Hence, when I saw a range in Boots of cosmetics, creams and other gismos, labelled 'fresh', I had to give them a try, and as my knees look like the elephant man's face, I thought this fresh moisturising balm was worthy of my patronage. Unfortunately, I tried the other testers which all smelled and felt great, but the 'elbows, knees & toes' moisturising balm was what I bought.........

PRICE
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Hmmmmm......... the downside of caring whether your cream is fresh or filled with a million and one preservatives is that those things with LESS ingredients for some strange reason COST MORE. This is no exception, I felt at £4.00 for a very small tin, this stuff would have to be something special. Sadly, I found it wasn't. I could have got a great big bottle of cocoa butter based lotion for a similar price.

PACKAGING
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I have to be honest here and own up to being attracted to the product purely based on the 'Fresh' marketing stand and the product itself looking a bit like a pretty silver shoe polish tin, with a lavender label. It certainly is distinctively different from the other moisturisers I have seen, and I was quite excited about getting it home. Unfortunately, I should have tried the sampler available in store.

SMELL & TEXTURE
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One of the things I normally like about fresh-type products (such as Lush, my favourite) is that they smell absolutely gorgeous. Sadly, this balm contains petroleum, beeswax and olive oil (so not too different from furniture polish then!) and that is exactly what it smells like. Texture wise, it is like lavender petroleum jelly (only a lot more expensive), with a very greasy feel and that sticky heavy residue which seems to last for hours. Yuk.

EFFECTS
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I think my knees and elbows feel a lot softer after using this product, which I suppose is the intention. However, I wouldn't say they feel any better than using any regular body lotion or hand cream, in fact, I reckon putting on Petroleum Jelly would give you the same effect, it certainly smells the same and feels just as greasy. I hated the way it made my fingers feel when applying it, and whats worse is that the grease lingers for a while.

COMPARISON WITH OTHER PRODUCTS
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Comparing this product to other moisturisers seems somewhat unfair, as just about any cheapo hand cream smells, feels and moisturises better than this one. However, when compared to Petroleum jelly, it probably has a slight edge in that its a prettier colour - but then, it costs a lot more than Vaseline.

CONCLUSION
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Overall, I think this £4.00 of mine was very badly spent, and I can think of 101 better things to spend it on. I won't even use it again, let alone buy it again! I wouldn't recommend this product at all, I think that cheap Cocoa Butter cream is a whole lot better, and if I wanted to splash out, I'd go for Lush's dream cream (twice the price, but twice the quantity and definitely a million times nicer!

Sorry Ciao-ers, this one proved to be an expensive lemon.....one I won't be sucking on again!