I love Burt's Bees.

Burt and his bees have, over the years, provided me with many wonderful and excellent, as well as natural, personal care products. I have used Burt's soap. His hair conditioner. His shampoo. His foot cream. His cuticle cream. His hand lotion. His body lotion. His facial wash (my personal favourite). All of them have been excellent and wonderful.

So when I saw that Burt and his bees were now producing a natural SPF 15 sunscreen, I was excited. I was already using a natural sunscreen from another company, but since Burt had always had such a track record of excellence, I thought I would try his as well. The other sunscreen was a bit thin and watery, so I thought that maybe Burt's would be a better consistency.

Well, it was. Burt's sunscreen can certainly not be accused of being thin and watery. In fact, it runs so far the opposite direction that it's almost the facial equivalent of modelling clay.

You squirt a bit onto your hand. A nice, white glob. So far, so good. Then you put it onto your face. You rub it in. So far, so good.

Then, you look in the mirror. Or a kind friend says, "You have streaks on your face," and you look in the mirror. And you realize, to your horror, that you look like the Zombie Bride of Frankenstein. White streaks are ALL OVER your face.

You try to rub them in. Then you realize that within 0.00002 milliseconds of encountering air, this Burt's Bees sunscreen stuff has hardened into the consistency of cheese, and when you try to rub it in, not only does it NOT rub in, you are left with white crumbs of the stuff that has now rubbed OFF your face but still sticks to your skin.

No matter how vigorously and thoroughly you massage the stuff into your skin, you will at best be free of huge obvious streaks. You will ALWAYS, no matter how hard you try, look as if you have inexpertly and thickly applied white foundation makeup. Worse (to me, because I have hyper-teary eyes), if you tear, the tears turn a milky white as they course down your face.

I am disappointed. I expected better of Burt.

Perhaps it is just the fact that it is a new product. There's always room for improvement. Perhaps the second generation of Burt's Bees sunscreen will be much, much better.

But I find it hard to believe that in testing the product, the testers ALL missed the fact that they looked like zombie Brides of Frankenstein! Who did they test it on, pantomime artists?