One of the questions I have when making my own products has to do with how they are going to travel and hold up under extreme temperature changes. So in an attempt to answer the question and get a more objective evaluation I sent a package of samples off to a young friend living in Spain. My timing was extremely lucky as she was about to set off traveling for the holidays as was her roommate. Thanks to my two adventurous guinea pigs the Pen & Hive lip balms and hand creams were tested in Prague, Budapest, and Peru. I'm sharing her whole post because it's informative and entertaining. And yes, she's a writer.
Fireside hand cream: This stuff was an absolute lifesaver. Not only did it save my hands from the freezing weather of Prague and Budapest, it also acted as the best deodorant, scraped skin protectant, lip balm (when I left the actual lip balm in another bag,) spider bite healer, emergency dry hair conditioner, and dry foot balm. Plus, I don’t know how you concocted that smell, but it’s probably my favorite part. Two different people asked me what “perfume” I was wearing on the metro in Prague. In a nutshell, I love this stuff.
The container was perfect for traveling. I love how you can seal it by twisting, so you feel secure about it staying put even when it heats up enough for the coconut oil to melt.
The consistency never changed even after melting and setting and freezing repeatedly. The size of the tin was perfect for flying too.
I also appreciated traveling with this because when you’re in a dry skin jam it’s easy to run to the pharmacy, and in a fit of desperation, buy hand cream that has enough chemicals to kill a giant beetle. I was glad to use your hand cream for whatever problem I had and feel secure in the ingredients. That’s so important.
The only thing that showed wear and tear was the label, but I’d beg you not to print plastic labels. I’d much rather see paper labels than plastic.
She hand cream: I sent Amy home to Peru with this and she had nothing but great things to say about it. She loved the smell and the texture. She said she used it on dry hands from the long flights to help with super dry skin, and on jungle bug bites.
She read my above paragraph and agreed with all of it so I won’t repeat everything.
Bee soap: Amy and I each took one to travel with over Christmas. Mine was used by the other Katie (Savage,) our friend Homey, and myself. It was gone by the end of the trip (ha). It was a great travel size, not too heavy. I put it in a little soap travel box to take with us. It got left in a shower water puddle one night and got mushy, but it dried out and we just scooped with fingers from the box from then on. I could only use it once every two days because it dried my skin out a bit. Luckily, I hand the fireside cream to slather on.
Studyhall lip balm: I enjoyed schmearing this on so much that I became very protective, even territorial, of it during Christmas. Not only did it protect from the wind, it’s a great sealer for lip stain (I make a beet powder lip stain, but it only lasts for three or four hours without this lip balm over it.) The consistency didn’t change at all, no matter the change in temperature. It was perfect to use after 8 hours in the thermal baths of Budapest where even my mouth looked like a raisin.
A note about the photos: The majority of the photos without any people are places where we got wind chapped like no one's business. Maggs had on ALL your bee products in the photo with the locks. She commandeered the fireside balm for a time. I wish we had one of her holding it like the sneaky rat she was....and the one of the two of us in Prague was when we were both sporting the lip balm and fireside cream.
Thank you for sending them. I had such a great time testing them.