Extreme Green Power Hand Scrub, 16 oz Jar (Formerly Mean Green) - Removes Oil, Grease, Dirt, Filth without Harsh Chemicals

Five stars for treating poison ivy. It was the most affordable of the three products that worked best for controlling symptoms of poison ivy. The other two were Zanfel and topical Triamcinolone 0.025% (prescription strength). I also tried hydrocortisone, both prescription and OTC - it was less effective. I did not try OTC Triamcinolone. Effectiveness compared to Zanfel: Both Mean Green and Zanfel provided immediate and lasting relief from itching. To compare them I applied Mean Green to one affected area and Zanfel to another. Mean Green provided somewhat better relief, but in hind side I realized that I may have used less Zanfel than Mean Green. Zanfel is 50 times more expensive, so I was stingy with its application Effectiveness compared to Triamcinolone: Both Mean Green and Triamcinolone provided 5-6 hours of relief. Mean Green acted immediately, Triamcinolone took 10-15 minutes to start working. Mean Green provided slightly better relief. Triamcinolone relieved itching, but the skin still felt sensitive to the touch. With Mean Green the skin felt just smoother than usual. Availability: Zanfel and Triamcinolone were readily available in the local pharmacy. I could not find Mean Green in a local store, so I had to wait for the Amazon delivery. Convenience: To apply Mean Green or Zanfel you pretty much have to be in a shower. You may be able to apply them over a sink if only your hands or forearms are affected. Triamcinolone is much easier and faster to apply. This matters if you wake up from itching in the middle of the night or if you need relief from itching at work. Other: Using Mean Green and Triamcinolone together provided the longest lasting relief - enough to sleep through the night. Does it actually cure poison ivy? Not from my experience. The itch would always return 5-6 hours later, and I still have some redness and itching 3 weeks after the first symptoms appeared. Mean Green is a cleaner so one would expect that it works by removing poison ivy from your skin, and should therefore speed up the recovery. However I did not observe this, I even suspect that the mechanism of action is different - for example Mean Green seemed to work for eczema itching.

i was hesitant about trying this style of hand cleaner, we've tried a ton of them and never found one that works very well, but this stuff was amazing, its super gritty, and took EVERYTHING off my hands, plus acts as an exfoliant. bonus point for not leaving my hands dry! I'm now purchasing a bigger tub and dispenser from their site and this ones coming home

So if you're reading this, you may be like me, and have recently wandered into a patch of poison ivy (fun fact: did you know that poison ivy, even in the winter and without the leaves, is still super dangerous? I obviously didn't!). I had rashes breakout all up and down my arms, my stomach, and on my right leg. Anti itch creams from the pharmacy either worked a little or not at all. In an itch induced desperation, I purchased a one ounce tube of Zanfel for $45 at CVS. The Zanfel instructions are very clear that you need to use a lot of it, meaning you could easily burn through several tubes if you have a bad case of poison ivy and use it frequently. While Zanfel works great, Mean Green does just as good of a job. And at $20 for a 60 ounce tub, it costs 33 cents an ounce, or less than one percent of the price. Also, with Zanfel I was hesitant to use more than a little fingernail sized amount out of fear that I'd have to take out a second mortgage should I need to buy more. With Mean Green, you can just grab a handful and toss it on your skin without putting a dent in your supply. It works best if you wet the affected area with cool water first, then apply the Mean Green. I rub it into the affected area for about a minute or so. Sometimes the hardest part is to actually stop working it into your skin. It's full of these little micro beads that are like a million little elves that scratch your itch. I can't even explain how good it feels, but if you're in the middle of a poison ivy outbreak, you can imagine. After that, make sure you thoroughly rinse the area (you don't want it drying on your skin), then just gently dry and you're done. I find that this will relieve itching from the area for anywhere from about 2 to 4 hours. I'm sure this will vary from person to person. I have also read a some people claiming it helps shorten the overall duration of the rash. I have not found this to be the case with me, as the rash lasted about two weeks, which is pretty typical, but even if it didn't shorten the duration, the relief it provided from the itching worth its weight in gold. We're not into mosquito season where I live yet, but I'll be interested in seeing how this works on those bites as well.

I have had poison ivy for 3 weeks now, and I've used every kind of cream and salve and lotion available (including prescription strength) as well as a round of steroids, and I STILL have this horrendously itchy, patchy red rash all down my legs. Nothing gave me relief from the itch, and I would wake up at least twice a night scratching at it. I had read about this scrub and all the positive reviews for how well this helped poison ivy. I was desperate and decided to try it anyway, even tho my rash is 3 weeks old and the plant oil is long gone. Listen, I didn't expect much, but this stuff is shockingly good - I scrubbed my legs down for a good minute or two while in the shower with about a quarter sized dollop and the itch was GONE as soon as I rinsed. The rash looked angry red right out of the shower (of course it would, you just scrubbed at it for a couple minutes) but a little while later it's calmed down a lot - the bumpy rough texture has also smoothed out noticeably! It's slightly drying, but that's what you want for a rash. I think this would have been super effective at removing the plant oil if I had used it right at the start, but if you currently are suffering from weeks old poison ivy rash and haven't found anything else to help, I HIGHLY recommend using this. I'll edit my review after a few days of using this product to give a final verdict, but so far I am really pleased. Edit: I'm now several weeks out from the initial contact and my rash is all but healed, this stuff is an absolute lifesaver.

There are two aspects to this excellent product: (1) A good de-greaser scrubby hand soap. I assume that it would work for that - my limited use there says it is good to great. (2) Cleaning you skin following exposure to poison ivy and/or development of a poison ivy rash: An ideal product, and in my experience probably equal to the stuff that my local pharmacy sells for $45 for 1 ounce. Mean Green is over 100x less expensive, and it worked wonderfully in my experience. Recently, I had a severe poison ivy rash on my hands. I am very sensitive and get a severe allergic reaction to urushiol oil, the "active ingredient" in poison ivy. By the time my order of Mean Green had arrived, about four days after exposure, my hands had swollen to a popeye-like state so that I couldn't make a fist, and I was getting allergic reactions in many places on my body as my immune system overreacted to the irritant. I eagerly washed all over with the Mean Green, with extra attention for my hands. Amazingly, the swelling started going down almost immediately, and within a few hours my hands were almost normal, albeit still red and maybe mildly itchy. Overall, the impact of the Mean Green was incredible. It seemed almost magical in how rapidly it relieved the worst of my symptoms, and halted the spreading of the rash. I still had a rash that took some days to heal, but the powerful itching was gone as soon as I had used the Mean Green. What I assume from my experience is that the formulation of Mean Green is nearly perfect for dissolving and removing urushiol from your skin. This must be due to the combined action of its ingredients (a degreasing soap) and the scrubbing action of the microscopic beads in the product. It probably works as well as or better than any poison ivy soap that is out there. I had also tried Tecnu Extreme before trying the Mean Green, and the Tecnu did not seem to be nearly as effective. That might have been timing, but the remarkable and nearly instant relief upon using the Mean Green was something I will never forget. I highly recommend this product.

I worked on my yard and came back home with that nasty feeling that poison ivy may have gotten to me. Indeed... two weeks later, I found myself itching all over my arms, body, and legs... and the symptom was continuing to spread to other parts of the body. The ointment that I had from my previous visit to the dermatologist few years ago no longer worked. Someone told me about using soap as a poison ivy remedy so I decided to try it hoping I wouldn't have to go see a dermatologist again. (Happened to me twice in the past... and I'm starting to recognize the symptom of poison ivy a bit better). After searching around, I bumped into this Mean Green scrub and decided to give it a try. I was already itching for two weeks and the symptom was getting worse... so I had a late start. At first, taking a shower with the scrub did give me a temporary relief.... for about 4 hours... then I found myself itching again. The itchiness continued to spread as well. However, I decided to stick with the scrub since I purchased pretty big jar (60.5 oz). Might as well try to use as much as I can since I paid for it. For two days, I took shower 3 times a day with the scrub just for that temporary relief. Within few days, my itchiness got more manageable... but it was still there. However, I was able to get by taking 2 showers a day. Then gradually, my itchiness went away.... now I'm back to showering once a day. I'm still using the scrub now just to make sure that the itchiness would not come back... and for other benefits that I noticed from the scrub (which I specify later) I would say it took me about 2.5 weeks of using the scrub for me to feel comfortable enough to feel relieved... .back to being normal again. It was not a quick one shot, itchy-free deal. Mind you that I was already into 2 weeks of painful state... so I am not sure if I would have gotten quicker result if I started using it right away.... or perhaps it just takes about a month or so for poison ivy symptom to disappear on its own naturally... I cannot say... I am not a dermatologist. However, the scrub definitely gave me the temporary relief from itchiness and as I keep applying them, my skin became less itchy gradually over time. Besides the purpose of poison ivy relief, my skin felt better... softer.. smoother... after using the scrub. so I thought it was better than average soap for my body. I am 95% sure that it was the scrub that helped me get over poison ivy problem. However, because it did take me some time to feel better, I am giving it a 4 star.

An almost magical product for poison ivy relief ... Fort the past week I've suffered poison ivy all over both hands, arms, and shoulders. I've been waking up at 3am itching all over - nightmarish symptoms overall. I tried antihistamines, calamine, IvaRest, Benadryl lotion, steroid creams ... nothing worked much. The Zyrtec pills helped for about 4 hours, but by dinner time I'm scratching all over again. While researching products on Amazon, I came across this stuff, and figured anything was worth a shot, and since I also get grimy hands on a daily basis, I figured it wouldn't hurt. When you open the tub, it looks like green pla-doh. I made a soft paste with a bit of water and slathered it all over my arms and decided to just let it sit for 10 minutes or so, then I hopped in the shower to rinse. The areas on my upper shoulders that I hadn't hit with this stuff started burning immediately, so hopped out & grabbed some more, slathered up, rinsed off .... the results were, well, weird. The swelling simply went away. The change in appearance was strange - I've never seen my skin react so quickly to anything. It took 5 days for the poison ivy to become apparent all-over, and about 20 minutes for it to go away. All I can see now are some scratcy areas where I must have scratched myself while itching, and a few red dots, some minor bumps that were angry and red when I started... Oh, and my skin feels soft and smooth to boot! Now I have to don some gloves and more of this magical green paste and go disinfect my weed-eater, which I've been afraid to touch since this whole mess started... All told, I probably used a tablespoon of the magical green dough, so I have a lifetime of hand-cleaning and poison-ivy cure left over. In a nutshell - the best stuff for poison ivy I've ever used in 40+ years (and it'll clean your hands like a champ too!).... :)

I mix this product with equal amounts of water to make a "slurry" which will stick to your skin better when washing and also helps to create a little bit of a lather. I keep it in an old dish washing liquid squeeze bottle. If you use the product as is, you don't get much lather and it will fall off your skin easily which wastes a lot of the product. Whenever I come in from the woods I wash my whole body with this and let it on for about 5 minutes before rinsing. Then I wash with my regular shower soap. I've been using this method for the past few month's and have never gotten a rash yet. Since this works so well as a preventive measure, I can't vouch for the other claims that say it helps cure an existing rash. Be careful not to get it in your eyes. It doesn't sting at all, but I've experienced some temporary vision impairment. Read the MSDS form for more info on this product. I was extremely alarmed when this happened but found some reassurance after reading the MSDS. I've kept it away from my eyes ever since that one experience and have never had a problem since! Everyone should at least try this cleanser if you are prone to getting the poison ivy rash!! The cost is quite low with comparison to similar products. Good Luck!! BTW: It also seems to relieve the annoying itch from insect bites. Plus the aroma from this scrub is more pleasant than some of the other poison ivy soaps that I've used over the years.