You work hard to take care of your body, you eat right and workout, but sometimes your body just doesn't keep up with your lifestyle or your youthful living ability. Thats where Muscle Relief Gel comes in. Created by Jerèll and Elissa Klaver who are an athletic husband and wife team who knew what they wanted, and just as important, what they didn't want.
Our values are simple: a pain relieving and muscle recovery product that works, with natural and organic ingredients that respects our Earth.
We we were developing Muscle Relief Gel we had the following criteria:
WHAT WE WANTED
- The very moment it came into contact with your skin you knew it was working.
- Immediate Cooling Sensations
- Use ingredients which provide long lasting and PROVEN long term relief
- Homeopathic healing properties of Arnica Montana
- All natural ingredients
- Homeopathic Essential Oils
- FDA approval and available research studies.
- Made in the USA
- Commitment to our environment
- Commitment to Athletes
- Commitment to Arthritis
- Commitment to Women
- Commitment to those serving in our Armed Forces
- Approved for Over The Counter (OTC) use
DID NOT WANT
- Potentially harmful chemicals
- Parabens: Methylparaben, Ethylparaben & Propylparaben
- Animal or animal related products like lanolin
- Animal Testing
- Petroleum (Oil) based ingredients
- Waxes
- Paraffins
Muscle Relief Gel's 3 Key Ingredients
Menthol FAST
Capsaicin EFFECTIVE
Arnica RECOVERY
Menthol FAST A very effective and proven natural pain reliever that provides immediate cooling sensations and pain relief.
Capsaicin EFFECTIVE Known for its proven deep penetrating pain and arthritis relief abilities, anti inflammatory abilities, ability to suppress Substance P production, and potentially may inhibit the growth of leukemic cells (anti-cancer properties).
Arnica Montana RECOVERY: As a homeopathic remedy it containscontains helenalin which is a sesquiterpene lactone, that may have anticancer and anti-inflammatory effects. It may also reduce bruising following muscle injury.
... And, we didn't stop there! Muscle Relief Gel is full of Organic Aloe and Essential Oils! see our full list of ingredients in the FAQ page.
WHY IS MUSCLE RELIEF GEL an OVER THE COUNTER (OTC)?
WHY TAKE THE RISK WITH YOUR HEALTH? You can be confident in Muscle Relief Gel because IT IS an OTC! Many products available today are not approved for OTC use. This means that they do not take the necessary steps to ensure the safety and accuracy of their product. An easy way to identify that a product may not be what it says is by just looking at the labeling: Is it confusing, misleading, or claim to be a cure all for your pain?
The FDA explains it best
The underlying rule when deciding whether a product is authentic or not is to ask yourself: "Does it sound too good to be true?" If it does, it probably isn't true.
If you're still not sure, check it out: "Look into it--before you put it in your body or on your skin," says Reynaldo Rodriguez, a compliance officer and health fraud coordinator for FDA's Dallas district office.
To check a product out, FDA health fraud coordinators suggest:
- Talk to a doctor or another health professional. "If it's an unproven or little-known treatment, always get a second opinion from a medical specialist," Rodriguez says.
- Talk to family members and friends. Legitimate medical practitioners should not discourage you from discussing medical treatments with others. Be wary of treatments offered by people who tell you to avoid talking to others because "it's a secret treatment or cure."
- Check with the Better Business Bureau or local attorneys generals' offices to see whether other consumers have lodged complaints about the product or the product's marketer.
- Check with the appropriate health professional group--for example, the American Heart Association, American Diabetes Association, or the National Arthritis Foundation if the products are promoted for heart disease, diabetes or arthritis. Many of these groups have local chapters that can provide you with various resource materials about your disease.
- Contact the FDA office closest to you. Look for the number and address in the blue pages of the phone book under U.S. Government, Health and Human Services, or go to www.fda.gov/ora/fed_state/dfsr_activities/dfsr_pas.html on the FDA Website. FDA can tell you whether the agency has taken action against the product or its marketer. Your call also may alert FDA to a potentially illegal product and prevent others from falling victim to health fraud.
We believe in Muscle Relief Gel so much that we made it to be an Over-the-counter (OTC) because OTC drugs play an increasingly vital role in America's health care system. OTC drug products are those drugs that are available to consumers without a prescription. As with prescription drugs, the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER) oversees OTC drugs to ensure that they are properly labeled and that their benefits outweigh their risks.
OTC drugs generally have these characteristics:
- their benefits outweigh their risks
- the potential for misuse and abuse is low
- consumer can use them for self-diagnosed conditions
- they can be adequately labeled
- health practitioners are not needed for the safe and effective use of the product
IMPORTANT FDA & NIH LINKS
Is It a Cosmetic, a Drug, or Both?
(or Is It Soap?)
How to Spot Health Fraud
An FDA Guide to Choosing Medical Treatments
National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM)
NCCAM - Questions and Answers About Homeopathy
Our Story
by
Jerèll Klaver: co-founder Muscle Relief Gel by Salus
Wouldn't it be great to be able to exercise and experience life with out the associated everyday aches and pains that we all suffer from? But unfortunately this is not the case and we all have to deal with some level of physical pain in our lives due to our daily activity and the effects of getting older. I don't like pain, and in part why I founded Muscle Relief Gel with Elissa. Because my aches and pains are the same as yours and I simply I wanted a product that provided great pain relief and was good for me. So necessity being the mother of invention I created Muscle Relief Gel.
How Muscle Relief Gel came about.
Back when I was younger and in the Marine Corps, I could take on the world with out any associated pain. I could leap from tall buildings, run faster than speeding bullets, work faster and play harder than anyone ...after all I was a Marine. Following my service I had the great opportunity to find out about the Leadville Trail 100 race series and in 1994 I competed in the first ever Leadville Trail 100 mile Mountain bike race. I managed to finish 94th overall and squeak in time of 11:556:04. I have been doing the races ever since to include two attempts at the 100 mile run, a great case of hypothermia, and simply fun being part of the LT100 family.
I love to be in a 5k, 10k event, Ride-the-Rockies, swimming, golfing, skiing or even running the BoulderBoulder backwards because it is great to be outdoors. But like so many of you I am mortal and have been faced with more injuries, back pains and broken engines over the last few years than I have cared to have had. I have to admit there is nothing like a great workout, a great race or even a great day on a golf course but my body simply couldn't keep up with my desire to get back into the action of life.
What the all my training and incredible people I have met over the years taught me was that it doesn't matter if you train easy or hard you are going to have aches and pains. So what I had to learn was how to deal with it. When I got out of the Marine Corps I became an EMT and I learned the importance of proper medical care and the necessity to treat serious injuries by a professional. However for lesser injuries and arthritis; heat/ice packs, Ibuprofen, aspirin, and topical pain relief products, are available and I have tried everything. There are some good products out there, and many that I did really like. But my like of existing synthetic products changed following the passing of our second Son, Gabriel.
His few moments with us really made Elissa and I evaluate what was important in our lives and what was not. He made us really dig deep down inside and ask ourselves what we wanted out of life, what a happy life meant to us and how would we achieve it. For us the answer centered around heath. If Gabriel was born healthy verse the chromosomal trans-location disorder that he had, he still would be with us here today. He further made us realize that we wanted to work for ourselves so that we could and ought to support what we felt and knew was important.
Eventually SALUS was founded with Elissa being the driving and creative force. The Salus concept was simple to come up with once we knew what we wanted. First Salus is Latin for health. Why health? Because at the end of the day, health is what matters. If you don't have your heath (spiritually, physically, and mentally) nothing else matters. It is your personal health, your families health, and your friends health that we want to support. The Salus concept focuses on healthy products and healthy living.
When Salus first opened its doors last year, I wanted to have a Muscle Relief Gel (or MRG as we like to call it for short) to help me in my training and athletic adventures because of the. Why did I create Muscle Relief Gel? Because I did not find a product that took care of my body and provided temporary pain relief the way I liked it. That meant a topical pain relief product that worked, was made with the simplest of natural and organic ingredients, didn't have any funny additives or stained my skin blue. Simply I wanted something that worked and was good for me, good for my health. I wanted something to help me get back into the action of life. So necessity being the mother of invention I created Muscle Relief Gel.
Muscle Relief Gel was so popular that we ran out of it in the first few months, and this made us realize that we were onto something special. So special and great that we wanted to take it to a larger market and tweak the formula based on some feedback and extended human testing. So that is exactly what we have done.
We took a careful look at or original ingredients and knew that we wanted to take a more pure approach and include Arnica Montana, replace the Capsicum with pure Capsaicin, get rid of the color, change the preservatives, and enhance the Essential Oil formula.
In all it took about 30 revisions to the formula to get it exactly the way we wanted it. The reason for this was that we wanted it to be perfect. For example one of the tests we did was an everyday heat test due to the Capsaicin levels. To much Capsaicin leaves a painful sensation on the skin (think sunburn feeling), yet we wanted it to be an active OTC ingredient, and according to the FDA to be listed as an active ingredient a final product must contain 0.025% Capsaicin (this threshold is also the reason that when you review research on Capsaicin the levels are 0.025% and higher but not lower). When we finalized our formula and sent it off for testing to adhere to FDA guidelines and ensure that the ingredient percentages we predicted were correct, we discovered that the final Capsaicin percent was 0.01%, and not 0.025% as we expected.. This also happened at the same time that we were having our tubes printed so we had to stop the printing presses. Our dilemma was that we had the perfect Capsaicin amount that resulted in a great complement to the Menthol cooling effect, yet a heat level that did not result in a a burning sensation, but we were beneath the FDA guidelines for active ingredient listing. Our decision was simple, leave the formula as we created it and change our active ingredient listing. We have the perfect formula, and know it.
We also partnered with Xelapack as our sample packet company because through them we were able to continue our commitment to the environment and use 100% Post Consumer Recycled Paper (PCRP) samples.
We are also proud of our efforts with Muscle Relief Gel because it is 100% Made In the USA!
As Muscle Relief Gel by Salus continues to grow and become the most popular and effective topical pain relief product ever, we want to know that we are diligently working to sponsor your local athletic events, and also soon be found in your local premium retailer. In the mean time you can buy MRG at the Salus website.
Most importantly though we want to thank you for making MRG happen!!!
-Jerèll & Elissa Klaver
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