Skin Care Ingredient Article: The Benefits of Aloe Vera: Skin Care, Digestion and More

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The Benefits of Aloe Vera: Skin Care, Digestion and More

By Nancy Chute

Aloe Vera is a natural remedy used for burns, scrapes and digestive health. The herb can even be used as a natural cosmetic and easily grown in any home garden.

I grow my own treatment for minor, burns on a kitchen windowsill where it's always fresh and ready for emergencies. This living remedy, aloe vera, is also a great plant to have around for scrapes or rashes and, as it turns out, many other ailments too.

The benefits of aloe vera are not an old wives' fantasy. Its healing qualities are medically recognized and many creams, ointments, and cosmetics made from its juices are sold in this country and all over the world. Still, it's less expensive-and more effective-to grow your own!

The plant's secret is the clear jelly stored inside its thick succulent leaves — a juice which forms a protective coating over a cut, burn, or abrasion and so promotes healing. Best of all, this natural ointment needs no processing to be effective. Just break off a leaf, slit it open, and smear the gel liberally on an affliction. Then keep the area moist to draw out the pain.
Unused portions of the healing greenery will stay fresh wrapped in plastic and stored in the refrigerator, where it will remain ready for repeat applications or for the next crisis that comes along. In cold weather a severed leaf also keeps well on a bathroom windowsill while a rash or pimple is being doctored.

Aloe Vera and Burns

Our first "burn plant" quickly fascinated our children. They saw me use its juice to treat minor mishaps with hot saucepans and became anxious to make the thick jelly work its magic for them, too. Soon, a scraped leg from a bicycle accident gave them the opportunity. I felt like a witch doctor as I slit a leaf lengthwise and carefully patted the gel on the abrasion but the victim claimed that the treatment worked wonders.
We've since relieved the pain and redness of sunburn, cleared up a persistent diaper rash, and healed assorted skin blemishes in the same way. Sometimes I've even taped a slice of aloe vera directly to an affliction to keep the injury moist with its healing jelly.
Some experts say that such ailments should be treated with leaves at least one foot long, since only mature aloe vera foliage possesses healing qualities. I've used smaller shoots, however, with good, results but have noticed that larger, older spears do have a stronger odor and yellowish rather than clear jelly. No doubt these are signs of "bigger medicine."

Aloe Vera and Skin Benefits

Our few experiments with aloe vera have explored only its most common uses. I understand, though, that this remarkable plant (now under scientific investigation for its beneficial effects on X-ray and other radiation burns) has been known over the centuries for a variety of healing powers.

Along the Texas - Mexico border, for instance, old timers will clean quite a large wound with antiseptic and then bandage a cut aloe vera leaf to it, just as the Indians did. Another leaf is applied when the dressing is changed. Folks in those parts put the gel on the skin to protect against insect bites or to relieve itching, too.

I've also heard that Mexican women use the plant cosmetically by rubbing the leaves on their faces to prevent wrinkles and the men use it as a shampoo to prevent baldness and graying. The thick juice is massaged into the hair and scalp which absorb it within a few hours-and left on overnight. The next morning, when the dried gel is washed off (no soap is necessary) — lo, the hair is silky, manageable, and supposedly more luxuriant than before!

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