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Natural Hero Freeze + Ease Sports Spray

3
£11.99

VERDICT:

3
10
Full of natural goodness, and smells and feels nice for a short while but has little perceptible or lasting effect
Weight: 
116g

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Natural Hero Freeze & Ease spray is a 99% natural pump spray that you can squirt onto your muscles before, during or after exercise to help you feel revived and energized.

It's a botanical blend of peppermint, white willow, arnica, witch hazel and blue chamomile that delivers a cooling blast on the surface of the skin that's followed by a light warmth to ease stiff and aching muscles. Natural Hero also pop some black oat seed extract in the pH-balanced formula to help condition your skin.

Well that all sounds rather lovely, and it is, but that's about it really.

Spray Freeze + Ease onto your eager body and you get an instant, and instantly refreshing cooling sensation. It's a bit like the fresh air tingle you get when you brush your teeth with that on-trend baking soda toothpaste. Imagine that clean and bright feeling, but on your muscles. It's very pleasant.

The spray is quick drying and easily absorbed. As it's not oily it doesn't leave any kind of greasy slippery sticky residue. Rub it into your muscles and it's gone, absorbed within seconds to do its job.

With no parabens (a class of chemicals widely used as preservatives in cosmetics and pharmaceuticals), no sodium laureth sulfate (a detergent and surfactant found in many personal care products) and no petrochemicals it's all agreeably unthreatening stuff if you're worried about covering your body with nasties, and it smells refreshingly pepperminty too.

After that initial cooling sensation there's a very subtle warmth that does its best to penetrate into pre-ride muscles to get them going or post-ride tired muscles to help them recover.

I say does its best because it doesn't seem to do anything much. Natural Hero's claims that Freeze + Ease can revive tired muscles and ease muscle fatigue and even give a boost to your training and recovery routine seem a little enthusiastic.

The warming effects of the spray don't permeate deep into the muscles, the fresh pepperminty feeling lasts less than half an hour and as it dries quickly on the skin it can't even be massaged into muscles with the mild benefit that a bit of a rub can afford. Despite frequent applications before and after rides, and on generally achy muscles at other times there was precious little tangible benefit or improvement of wellbeing to weary body parts.

Shame.

Verdict

Full of natural goodness, and smells and feels nice for a short while but has little perceptible or lasting effect.

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road.cc test report

Make and model: Natural Hero Freeze + Ease Sports Spray

Size tested: xx

Tell us what the product is for, and who it's aimed at. What do the manufacturers say about it? How does that compare to your own feelings about it?

Feeling 'the burn'? Then it's time to Freeze & Ease say Natural Hero. Use their dual effect 99% natural Sports Spray before or during a training session to revive and feel energized. Their botanical blend of peppermint, white willow, arnica, witch hazel and blue chamomile delivers a cool blast on the surface of the skin followed by a light warmth. Black oat seed extract in their pH-balanced formula also conditions your skin.

 

I really wanted to like the Natural Hero Freeze + Ease Sports Spray, it's full of feel-good ingredients and little bit of pre or post-ride pampering is always nice but the spray really didn't have any tangible effects. The fact that this product has changed its name to 'Cool Peppermint Muscle Spritz' in the meantime probably says a lot.

Tell us some more about the technical aspects of the product?

Ingredients are - Alcohol Denat, Aqua, Hamamelis Virginiana (Witch Hazel) Water, Glycerin, Sucrose Laurate, Menthyl Lactate, Arnica Montana Flower Extract, Sorbitol, Mentha Piperita (Peppermint) Oil, Salix Alba (Willow) Bark Extract, Sucrose Dilaurate, Sucrose Trilaurate, Avena Strigosa (Black Oat) Seed Extract, Lecithin, Chamomilla Recutita (Matricaria) Oil (Chamomile), Limonene, Potassium Sorbate, Linalool, Citric Acid, Ascorbic Acid

Rate the product for performance:
 
2/10

Apart from feeling briefly refreshing it didn't seem to do much really.

Rate the product for durability:
 
2/10

The spray absorbed into the skin quickly and the effects didn't last long after that.

Rate the product for comfort, if applicable:
 
6/10

If felt pleasantly invigorating on the skin, short lived though.

Rate the product for value:
 
1/10

That's a lot of money for something that doesn't feel like it does much.

Tell us how the product performed overall when used for its designed purpose

To be honest, it didn't really perform.

Tell us what you particularly liked about the product

It felt and smelt nice and refreshingly tingly, for a short while.

Tell us what you particularly disliked about the product

Not an actual dislike, but it didn't feel like it actually did anything.

Did you enjoy using the product? Well, um, it felt pleasing enough, for a bit, but didn't seem to have any real effect.

Would you consider buying the product? No.

Would you recommend the product to a friend? No.

Overall rating: 3/10

About the tester

Age: 42  Height: 180cm  Weight: 73kg

I usually ride: It varies as to the season.  My best bike is: The one I\'m on at the time

I've been riding for: Over 20 years  I ride: Most days  I would class myself as: Experienced

I regularly do the following types of riding: road racing, cyclo cross, general fitness riding, fixed/singlespeed, mtb, Fun

 

Jo Burt has spent the majority of his life riding bikes, drawing bikes and writing about bikes. When he's not scribbling pictures for the whole gamut of cycling media he writes words about them for road.cc and when he's not doing either of those he's pedaling. Then in whatever spare minutes there are in between he's agonizing over getting his socks, cycling cap and bar-tape to coordinate just so. And is quietly disappointed that yours don't He rides and races road bikes a bit, cyclo-cross bikes a lot and mountainbikes a fair bit too. Would rather be up a mountain.

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