We’re doing useful rather than glamorous this week, and we’re going slightly first-aid kit (as in the cupboard, not the totally great band David Cameron almost ruined by saying he liked them). Sheald Recovery Balm is by a company called iS Clinical that, as the name suggests, does heavy-duty clinical products. This one is designed specifically for use after cosmetic surgery and procedures such as laser treatment. Yes, I know you probably don’t have invasive procedures or laser treatment. Keep reading please.

Formulated to use on wounds, it a) speeds up recovery, b) prevents scabbing and peeling, c) restores healthy skin asap, and d) is about a specific amino acid, 4 hydroxyproline, that basically tells the skin to start making new collagen. That’s all very good, and if you have any kind of invasive treatment on the cards, you want a tube of this for afterwards. It would also come in handy following a bad facial, when you leave all red and swollen, cursing yourself for your lack of research.

I do not have invasive treatments, but I do have a child who had open-heart surgery last October. The surgeon went in through her existing scar this time. It’s a beautiful scar as it happens, but, obviously, it’s a scar. And it’s a scar that had finished healing when I approached my guinea-pig daughter brandishing my tube of Sheald. Or so I thought. Turns out this was not the case: this stuff is incredible on scars, even if the scars are old. After a month of use, it has all but erased my daughter’s. I would strongly recommend using this on post-pregnancy stretch-marks or any other kind of stretch-marks or scarring, even if the marks or scars are not new. And if you know anyone who’s going for surgery, turning up at the hospital with a tube of this is going to be a lot more use than a bunch of flowers and some boring magazines. (Sheald and a Kindle loaded with comfort reads, that’s my advice.)

Sheald has multiple other applications, none quite as dramatic, but all as effective. If your skin is dry to the point of desiccation, whack this on all over before you go to bed. If your skin is behaving weirdly, ditto. If you get a stress rash, like I do – strangle little inflammations that come, itch and go away again – this stuff will get rid of them (it contains kava, which has a mild local anaesthetic effect, so the itch goes almost immediately). If you have ‘princessy’ skin that gets irritated by cleaning products – I spring-cleaned the kitchen recently and the oven cleaner made me come up in giant hives – this will sort you out. Strange dry patches: gone. Knackered looking skin under your eyes after too many late nights: gone. Dry elbows/knees/feet: banished. Mild allergic reactions that show up in your skin as annoying red splodges: zapped.

This stuff has tons of uses other than its chief cosmetic one; it’s quasi-miraculous. Parents of small children should keep a tube handy in case of cuts, falls, nicks and grazes, and I have a feeling Sheald would work brilliantly on chickenpox scars. I’ve not tried it on acne scars, but if anything’s going to work, it’s this. And if you have an elderly relative who is prone to banging their shins on things, get them some Sheald and their skin will heal faster. I don’t quite know why it’s marketed with the ‘post-procedure’ tag so much to the fore; everyone needs this stuff, not only ladies who like scalpels. Not cheap, but one of the most effective products I’ve ever come across.

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