THEPIGFOOT

Summer is coming and teatoxes seem to be everywhere you turn. I’ve been wanting to try one for a while now, so was super excited when the folks at Slendertoxtea sent me over a 14 day pack to sample.

The 14 Day package, available here for £19.99 (a bit steep in my opinion), comes with 14 teabags of ‘Daytox’, to take just after getting up in the morning, and 7 teabags of ‘Sleeptox’, to take every other night before bed. Slendertoxtea claims it will detoxify and cleanse your colon, increase your metabolism and your energy, make you feel refreshed, suppress your appetite and burn calories.

Now, my disposition may be of a rather cynical nature, but for a product with eight entries in its ingredients list, this does seem like a somewhat tall order. The website vaguely refers to these ingredients as a ‘South East Asian blend’, but hey, I’ve been finding it hard to shift the weight, and hearing rave reviews about teas like this, so my hopes were still relatively high when I started the teatox a few days ago.

Both the Daytox and the Sleeptox taste fine – a little like cabbage water, but that’s to be expected if you’re not used to herbal teas. Unfortunately, they just don’t seem to agree with me. To be fair, this may be due to already existing problems with my digestive system, but from what I have seen online, mine was certainly not an isolated case. Also to be fair, the website does warn you that ‘the initial few days of detoxing may be difficult, especially when you’re badly in need of a cleanse. Headaches, fatigue, interrupted sleep and hunger pangs are common during the these first few days, as this is is the toxins leaving your body’. The thing is, that 1) I don’t consider myself ‘badly in need of a cleanse’ – I tend to eat quite cleanly and have detoxed before, without falling ill – and 2) what most of the complaints focus on isn’t headaches, fatigue and hunger pangs, which I agree are to be expected from a detox. The fact is, that Slendertoxtea is a rather powerful laxative.

I will spare you the details, suffice to say that yesterday I was unable to leave the house, and experienced stomach cramps which nothing could have prepared me for (and I am no stranger to severe abdominal pain). The Sleeptox maybe I could handle; you take it at night, it does its thing early in the morning, and then leaves you alone. The Daytox, on the other hand, which is meant to have less of a laxative effect, simply made me unable to digest anything I tried to ingest from lunchtime onwards. Again, I will spare you the details, but when I say anything I mean anything.

What also concerns me, is that I see nothing in that admirably succinct ingredients list to warrant such a powerful laxative effect (what even is Sterling Bean?!).

I say, far be it from me to dissuade you from trying something new. As I said, it may be that my tummy just isn’t up for the challenge. If you do decide to give this tea a go yourselves, do heed their advice and start your teatox on a weekend or your day off. And don’t make any plans.