work

excerpt from a letter i wrote to a friend while working a reception position on thursday june 7.

3:08 pm
so, when i say that i'm going to file for 45 minutes, i should probably not rush through the rest of my filing & get it done in only 40. Though the rush of phone calls did help some. my hands are now dry & the girl who is normally here has some lotion and some burt's bees hand stuff. I'm totally gonna try if out! let's see if i can make that last 5 minutes.
-3:12
-3:17
ok, so i made it last that long, but even going relatively slow it really only takes 3 minute to use Bath & Body Works Mango Mandarin Anti-Bacterial hand lotion, burt's bees hand salve and burt's bees lemon butter cuticle creme. Dang, it takes almost as long to write as it does to use. This isn't a completely accurate test though, for a couple reasons.
1. I'm using someone else's product, do I applied in smaller portions.
2. I already knew what the Bath & Body Works was like, so I didn't use much of that, plus she's running low and I didn't want to be the reason she runs out.
3. I have absolutely no idea what hand salve actually is, or the appropriate amount or way to apply it. To me, it just kind of seems like a thicker lip balm type substance that smells like some generic aromatherapy product.

now, this salve is in a .3 oz container, so there is really no much room on the pachaging here to tell me what to do with it or what it does. There is room for the ingredients though. I know this because they have included them. there seem to be a lot of oils in here. five actually. wow. five oils in 11 total ingredient there are also 3 extracts.

fascinating, no?

hmm, they make sure to note that this product was "not tested on animals." yet they use beeswax in the product. i guess that's why vegans aren't exactly fans of burt's bees.

they've also included their website on the packaging, I guess one could go there to find out more about the purpose & use of the hand salve.

I've moved on to the lemon butter cuticle creme now. first off, i have to say that i love the smell. (it was kind of a negative for the salve but it kicks ass for the creme.) It's like lemon pledge with sugar. this probably sounds rather odd, but if there is ever some form of lemon pledge desert, i will smell exactly like this creme.

what's with the name though? is it because it's not an actual cream, but more of a balm? why not just call it a blam then? Or do they have enough balms already maybe? Maybe it would be too easy to confuse it with a lip product. So many questions brought on by one little word.

more interesting to me than that word is actually another group of words on the back of the tin. somehow, on the same size tin as the salve they have managed to fit a brief description & directions for the creme. This seems odd, especially since the creme had 8 ingredients, certainly not enough of a difference to allow for room for a description!

I've got the two side by side now & all is becoming clear. It is not a different size font as would be a logical guess, but there actually is more room for the print on the creme. Both tins thave the labeling printed on them, but the creme goes right to the edge, while the salve is made to look as though it is a sticker placed on the tin. This gives a small perimeter to the area of print on the salve tin, and reduces the useable space.

i bet you never though that 2 burt's bees products could captivate me for so long. Oh, and i didn't even get into the common ingredients (there are 6) ot the possible problem that burt's bees may have if cell phones are in fact killing off bees.

Considering the conversation that [my brother] & I had about cell phones & bees, this could have been a much longer letter if i went on to that topic.