Jungle Balm - Natural Pain (and Itch!) Relief

Already popular in Australia under the name Lawang Oil, Jungle Balm is pure cullilawan essential oil. It has only one ingredient, but many uses. Jungle Balm goes to work on anything that hurts - from arthritis to a jelly fish sting.

I'll be honest in saying that I'm skeptical of products like these, but I took up the offer to review a sample out of curiosity. During WWII, soldiers applied culillawan oil when morphine was not available, so I figured it had to be worth a try.

Jungle Balm is sustainably harvested, and it's scent and color vary season to season. This season, the scent seems to be minty - it made me think of a minty mouthwash. I wasn't sure what I was going to test Jungle Balm on, but considering my tendency towards klutziness, I wasn't worried something wouldn't come up that it could be used on. And something did, of course!

Cats Have Claws

Not a revelation, just a realization I am occasionally rudely made aware of by one of my two... sweet little angels. I was trying on a shirt that had ties on it, and kitty dearest decided the ties were toys, and in an attempt to jump my leg to catch these wondrous play things, a claw, that I learned at that moment was overdue for trimming, inserted itself into the back of my thigh. I yelped in pain, Gracie (that's the self-proclaimed innocent furball) crawled under the dresser thinking she was in trouble. Truth be told, I wasn't mad at her, but that's besides the point.

I cleaned out the cut and applied some antibiotic ointment, even though I'm not sold on it's effectiveness. My experience has always been that my cuts take longer to heal with the stuff. I wasn't proven wrong this time...

A week or so after the incident, the cut wasn't healed. In fact, it seemed worse. It was itchy, and somehow had turned into two holes instead of one (I'm thinking she caught me, slipped, and caught me again, and I just hadn't noticed at the time). The itch was similar but worse than that of a mosquito bite - scratching made it worse. On top of that, I had developed a rash from using band aids to discourage myself from scratching. Antibiotic ointment with numbing properties proved, again, useless. And now we're finally reaching the point of this post!

Jungle Balm Test

What better time to test a product that is supposed to help with pain and/or itch? When you're losing your mind trying not to scratch a bigger wound in your leg, I say! So I gave it a shot and applied the Jungle Balm. It's basically just a liquid, nothing fancy about it. It goes on smoothly, it's not sticky at all, and it dries in a few minutes. The full relief wasn't instant, but it did start to work very quickly. The itch dulled quite a bit, and after a few minutes, when the Jungle Balm was dry, faded away completely. It didn't come back until the next day, after showering.

Finally, with some itch relief, I wasn't waking up scratching my thigh and making the healing process slower. I used Jungle Balm on the spot before bed for a few nights, and didn't need it anymore after that. I approve, definitely.

I can't say much for it's effectiveness on pain, but if it works as well as it does for itching, I can see Jungle Balm being a great investment. I do have one suggestion, though. A small brush attached to the lid of the bottle for application, similar to those in nail polish bottles, would be a great addition.