Review: The Butters Bruise Soother

[Description: The top of a bureau, featuring many jars of cosmetics and hygiene products, with the Bruise Soother by The Butters Hygienics Co. closest to the camera.]

cw: Impact play, consensual bruising

EDIT: 3/14/21: I promoted some products from The Butters in this post, but after some horrible social media behavior from the owner, I can no longer support nor encourage purchases from this company. Purchase links will be removed, but content will remain more or less intact.

I’ve been vaguely aware of The Butters Hygienics Co. as a company that produced lube and soap for a while, but I hadn’t had a chance to try them out yet. But they reached out to me asking if I’d like to review a product. They’d apparently actually looked at my work (tip to people reaching out to bloggers: do that), because they specifically mentioned the bruise soother as a product I’d like.

The Butters is a “100% black queer-owned company” and all products are homemade, vegan, and “bullshit free.” They make a point to keep their products affordable as well, and tend to use inclusive language—look at the copy on their PMS Rescue! “This is not a menstrual product ‘for women.’ This is made for anyone of any, all, or no genders who suffer from PMS or PMS-like symptoms”! I really like their site, their business approach, and the look of most of their products…but of course, I’ve been burned by looks alone before.

Their Bruise Soother is an interesting product. Mostly oil-based, it also includes arnica, which has traditionally been used in herbal medicine as a pain-reliever and anti-inflammatory. It also includes calendula (marigold) extract, which is also traditionally used as an anti-inflammatory as well as to heal small wounds. My kitchen witchy ass loves a bit of herbal medicine, so I loved the idea of this. For bruises, I usually use Tiger Balm, and otherwise I tend to use a light lotion. I wanted to see how this compares to both.

[Description: Gray cat with the Bruise Soother jar, with The Butters Hygienics Co.’s logo clearly visible.]

The Bruise Soother arrived pretty promptly, and then…it sat on the shelf for a while. A combination of coronavirus anxiety, depression on my part, and a scary ER visit for my spouse (they’re fine!) meant that it was hard to get up enthusiasm for even a light kink session. So I definitely wasn’t up for the prolonged kind that is the only real way to produce bruises on my annoying, bruise-resistant ass. I kept suggesting we use it on other things (surely it would help back pain!) but Damien said no, it was for bruise aftercare and it would be used for kinky bruises, dammit.

Finally, we had time and energy to play. So Damien tied me up with our bed restraints and went to town. I love the sensation of many of my kink toys, but bruising requires some specific, extremely complex implements. I was at the vicious mercy of the $3 Walmart Wooden Spoon and its friend, The Old Whippy Cat Toy. I was, though, a little out of practice, so I, uh…screeched a lot. And cried. Twice. Also, the cat toy lost some feathers.

Needless to say, I had a great time!

After we were done, Damien thought at first that, even after all that, we might not have gotten any bruises out of it. My arms are very sensitive as I’ve mentioned, but they do bruise more easily so I did consent that, if necessary, we could try on my arms later for science. But fortunately, after a while, a few bruises did make an appearance on my ass. (No, you can’t see them.) They were small, and an array of speckles more than a big black-and-blue cloud, but they were bruises!

So, finally, almost 500 words into this review, we finally got to try the Bruise Soother.

[Description: The Bruise Soother jar, opened to show the contents, which actually do look like homemade butter.]

Damien was surprised by how smoothly it went on. We were expecting, from the texture, for it to be like one of those really thick lotions that you practically have to spread on with a frosting spatula, but it was much easier than that. It wasn’t as liquid as the cheap-ass lotion I usually use, but it felt really nice on my skin, and I could feel it soothe the stingy welts that The Old Whippy Cat Toy had left behind. And unlike our old bruise standby, Tiger Balm, it didn’t fill the whole room with the reek of camphor—in fact, it had no fragrance at all. More on that later.

Damien was annoyed initially about how much it stuck to their hands. It reminded them again of Tiger Balm, at first. Tiger Balm is usually really hard to get off your fingers due to how oily it is, and you have to get all that off or never go near your eyes again. It stings, is what I’m saying. However, the Bruise Soother washed off really easily. Even if it didn’t, it wouldn’t have had that sting, which is actually really relieving. It might have made handling doorknobs difficult, though.

Now, you should know that while I am reluctant to bruise, once I have one, it usually lingers for quite a while. So imagine my surprise when the next day, my little speckled bruises had vanished.

[Description: Orange and white cat with the Bruise Soother jar.]

Holy shit! Even Tiger Balm doesn’t work that fast. Now, with big ol’ bruises I don’t know that it would have been as fast, but this was still pretty impressive! Normally I don’t mind bruises and welts lasting a while (sometime I really like it) but the day after our session, we had a lot of errands to run to make sure we were prepared for pandemic isolation, and sore bruising would have been pretty distracting and annoying. But I felt nothing out of the ordinary.

I was actually very impressed that it not only helped the bruises, as advertised, but helped a lot with the welts and other soreness. But I was also impressed that it has no fragrance. A lot of people are very sensitive to scents, natural or otherwise, and a lot of balms for healing include essential oils or other perfumes. If you shove your nose really far in the jar it kind of smells like oil, which is not noticeable when you’re actually putting it on your skin.

I may not use this for every spanking session. Sometimes I want my welts and bruises to linger for a while. But I’m absolutely going to go for this when I need them gone faster, or when they’re just a little too painful to bear. I’m definitely gonna use the rest of this jar and then probably get a new one. Did I mention, by the way, that it’s only $8?

[Description: A closer shot of the Bruise Soother jar, along with some hand sanitizer and other things.]

The Bottom Line

The Butters made a really nice product here! It feels nice, it doesn’t stick to your skin, it has NO fragrance, and it works pretty well! If you’re into impact and want something that’ll help take care of any injuries after, and you want to support a really cool small business (and what better time than now?), then I think this is absolutely worth checking out.

This product was given to me for free for my honest review. I am not an affiliate of The Butters and will get no money from sales through GetTheButters.com; however, I have also used affiliate links in this post.