Cake's Satin Sugar All-Purpose Treatment Balm is a product that truly lives up to its name. It's a balm made of 86% shea butter and is good on just about any part of the body. Remember the kids' song to teach you the parts of the body? It goes "head and shoulders, knees and toes." This balm is good for all of that and everything in between. You can use it on dry areas of the body - knees, elbows, feet, and hands. You can use it to soften cuticles daily or as part of a manicure. You can use it as a lip balm. It can help to repair split ends in the hair and when applied lightly all over it works to fight frizz. Is there anything this balm can't do?

Satin Sugar Balm can be used by all genders, though the packaging and scent is geared toward females. The scent isn't overly feminine like some Cake products, so males could use this (at least in the evenings if the scent was too girly).

Cake is a paraben free company, but you should be sure to check the ingredient listing for potential allergies or sensitivities.

Balms are thicker in consistency than lotions. It's similar to a body butter or lip balm. This particular balm is a very hard consistency in the container. In order to get larger amounts of the product, you have to dig your fingers into it. If you want a small amount of product, you can simply rub your hand on the top of it and it will transfer onto your hand.

When rubbed on the fingers or into the skin, the feeling is similar to a combination of a rich body butter and a lip balm. It's not as greasy as many body butters are but not as matte as some lip balms. It is thick and slick to the touch. It begins firm and melts into the skin, much like an actual butter.

Here you can see the consistency in the container:


And here on my hand when removed in a larger quantity (note that larger quantity for balm still isn't a lot of product):


It leaves behind a slick feeling. It's not overly greasy, but does have a greasy element to it. Some body butters and balms will leave behind an oil slick. This one does leave behind a good amount of the balmy residue, but it isn't as heavy as that left behind by other brands.

The scent of the balm is listed as sugar and lemon. This is pretty accurate. It smells strongly of a sweet lemon. The scent is somewhat similar to some lemon based cleaning products but with a sweeter undertone and without the chemicals added to it. If you take just the good smell of a lemon cleaning product and add some sugar to it, that's something like the smell of this balm.

The aroma is very strong. It will fill a room within seconds of opening the product. For those that are sensitive to scents, this may trigger headaches. It clings to the skin somewhat, but doesn't last that long once the product has been applied. The scent stays on the skin for around an hour or so. If you don't move around a lot it will last longer, and if you do a lot of activity it will last a shorter period of time.

The taste of the balm is sour. This product should not be ingested.

This balm can be applied over or under lotion for enhanced hydration. It can be used overnight or during the day. The best results will be seen if it is used both during the day and at night, but results can be seen if it is used at only one period as well. Balms will have the most time to soak in if applied overnight and allowed to soak into the skin.

When applied during the day, the hydration lasts all day. It does not need to be reapplied during the day. If desired, it could be reapplied once mid-day, but no more than that would be needed.

Results are seen quickly with this balm. For dry areas (elbows, knees, and other dry spots), improvement was noted in about two or three uses. For extremely dry and cracked areas, such as the feet, about a week was needed to see significant improvement. For damaged areas, such as the cuticles, a week was also needed to get full results.

Instant results can be seen for a few uses. You can use this for manicure purposes to soften the cuticle before pushing them back. You can use this daily in your hair to fight frizz and fly-a-ways. The results of defrizzing lasted all day. It did not weigh down the hair or give the hair a greasy appearance as long as the product was used sparingly.

The balm left a light enough residue that it could be used night or day. It did not leave an overly greasy feeling, though it did leave behind a buttery film. It was lightweight enough to not be irritating during daytime use.

There is no external packaging to the product, just the container the balm comes in. The front says "Cake Satin Sugar All Purpose Treatment Balm" in French and English. It says "86% shea butter - for everything and anything" and has a list of uses along the side. The back has a blurb about the product and what it does in French and English as well as the ingredient list. It also lists ways to get in touch with the company.




You get 60g or 2oz of balm in the container. This is no lip balm sized product! To show you just how much product this is, here is a photo of the container in my hand:

The ingredients are:
Butyrospermum Parkii (Shea Butter), Cera Alba, Parfum, Phenoxyethanol
Cera Alba - Beeswax.
Phenoxyethanol - Glycol ether. Preservative.

I really loved this balm. I have some dry spots on my elbows and knees and after using this balm they feel just like regular skin. I also used this on my cuticles (which I bite and pick) for a week. They don't look perfect, but they look a lot more like a normal person's cuticles now. It's not really the balm's fault they don't look perfect because I couldn't stop picking them for testing purposes. Some habits are just too bad!

This balm really shined in two areas for me. The first was on my feet. I hate to admit this on the internet, but I have awful feet. They are very dry and cracked from who knows what. I used this along with the Milk Made Sugar Scrub for a week. Like my cuticles, I didn't quite get to perfection, but my feet look a lot better.

The second area, and possibly my favorite all time use for this, was on my hair. I have super thick and frizzy hair. It mentioned it was good for split ends, which I don't have. I decided to try it another way, as an all over hair product. I ran my fingers lightly over the balm and ran it through the bottom half of my hair first and then the top. It instantly tamed my frizz and kept it at bay all day long! It didn't weigh my hair down or make it look greasy, even after two days of use (I only wash my hair every few days due to how thick it is).

I was really surprised at the heaviness of this. While it's heavier and greasier than a lotion, it's not as bad as many balms and butters. I can't use it on my hands during the day because my hands are the most texture sensitive thing on me. I can put it on my elbows, knees, and feet during the day. I've never been able to use a balm or butter during the day before. In fact, most of them I was loathe to use even at night because of the heavy, greasy feeling to them. This still has that balmy, buttery feel, but it's not nearly as bad and it does absorb into the skin well.

The only bad thing I can say is that the scent is a little too strong for me. I get migraines and while I really like the scent of this, it did seem to give me headaches a lot. It doesn't hang around a long time, so once I put the product away it's okay. Just during use, I have to deal with a headache that sometimes doesn't go away.