Band-Aid Hurt Free: A Very Good Antiseptic
Written: Jan 24 '09 (Updated Jan 27 '09)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Effective at treating minor wounds, contains the same ingredients as Bactine
Cons: Contains 0.5% less of Lidocaine than Bactine; only comes in one size squirt bottle
The Bottom Line: Very good first-aid solution; everyone should have something like this in their house
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| mashimaru's Full Review: Johnson & Johnson Band Aid Brand Hurt Free Antisep... |
What is Band-Aid Hurt Free?:
It's a antiseptic wash meant to treat minor cuts, scrapes and burns. It helps relieve pain and itch and also prevents infection.
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Recently, I suffered a most embarrassing injury. I was at the gym, and fell off an exercise ball and bounced across the gym floor. So humiliating!
I came home with a pretty big scrape on my elbow. The only antiseptic products I happened to have at home were Neosporin ointment and rubbing alcohol. Rubbing alcohol is a very useful antiseptic whenever I get small cuts and scrapes. It stings a little, but usually, the cut is so small it doesn't matter. In the past, I used to have a bottle of Bactine around, but I haven't bought any in a long time, because rubbing alcohol takes care of most small wounds very well.
So I just washed the scrape with soap and water, put a blob of Neosporin on a piece of gauze and put that on it. And then I went to sleep.
The next day? Grossness. (Beware of icky description ahead!)
My scrape was infected! It was all oozy and hurt a lot. And despite my liberal application of Neosporin ointment, the gauze was stuck on my wound. Ewwwww. And owwwww. (The fact that I hurt myself by skidding across a nasty gym floor crawling with germs probably had something to do with it. Anyway, I warned you this was icky!)
I thought about putting rubbing alcohol on my wound. But I had a feeling that it would really hurt. So I put rubbing alcohol on a Q-tip and lightly grazed the edge of the wound and ... ow ow OW! No, I wasn't going to put any rubbing alcohol straight on this wound.
So I sent my husband out to buy me a bottle of Bactine, which I knew came in both a squeeze bottle and a spray bottle. I told him to get the squeeze bottle, because I needed to try and rinse out the wound as much as possible, and I didn't think I could do that with a spray bottle.
Unfortunately, the squeeze bottle of Bactine was sold out at my local Rite-Aid, so my husband came home with the spray bottle of Bactine, and a bottle of Band-Aid Hurt Free.
Using Band-Aid Hurt Free:
It comes in a 6 oz. bottle that's clear with a blue tint and a childproof blue cap (you have to hold it down while opening it). The liquid itself is clear like water, and shouldn't stain anything. The bottle is a squeeze/squirt type with a small hole on top.
I squirted a liberal amount of the Band-Aid Hurt Free on my scrape ... and it began to feel better right away! And I was quickly able to soak and peel away the gauze that was stuck on the wound without too much pain.
I continued to use Band-Aid Hurt Free on my wound regularly until it healed. The Band-Aid Hurt Free definitely helped reverse the infection and the wound healed properly. (All better now!)
About Band-Aid Hurt Free:
The active ingredients are:
Benzalkonium Chloride (0.13%, First Aid Antiseptic)
Lidocaine Hydrochloride (2%, External Anesthetic)
These are the same ingredients found in Bactine. The only difference is that Bactine contains 2.5% (0.5% more) of Lidocaine Hydrochloride.
Conclusion:
Well, I've never used this product before, but I can tell you that it worked very well for me. It helped heal a wound that has gotten icky and sticky. I'm sure that if I had used the product right away, my scrape would have never gotten infected in the first place. I would absolutely use this product again, for any minor cuts or scrapes.
Due to its ingredients, this product is basically an alternative to Bactine. Is it better or worse than Bactine? It's cheaper than the squeeze bottle of Bactine, which comes in a smaller 4 oz. bottle and costs more. The only real drawback of Band-Aid Hurt Free is that it doesn't come in a spray bottle, which some people might prefer.
About how well it works - it contains the same amount of the antiseptic ingredient (Benzalkonium Chloride), so I can assume that it kills germs as well as Bactine. About the pain relieving ability - does containing 0.5% less of Lidocaine matter that much? I'm not sure - I can say that my scrape had gotten pretty painful, and using Band-Aid Hurt Free relieved the pain right away. All in all, based on my personal experience, I can't tell a difference between this product and Bactine.
I like this product a lot. I thought it was very effective at treating minor wounds, and is a perfectly good cheaper alternative to Bactine. I plan to buy more bottles to keep in our cars, etc.
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I just discovered that Band-Aid Hurt Free comes in another packaging - a smaller, foam version that pumps out like hand soap. I haven't seen them before, but they sell them at Target.
Recommended:
Yes
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mashimaru
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