Aloe Vera And Its Natural Skin Care And Health Benefits

Aloe vera plants, particularly aloe barbadensis miller plants, have been used for centuries to help burns, cuts, and other skin ailments. Perhaps your grandparents always had one of these unique, cactus-like plants nearby, just in case of an emergency. If someone got a cut or burn, they would break an aloe leaf apart to extract gel from inside the leaf. The aloe gel inside the leaf is used as a natural healing salve.

With the onset of commercialism and the recent boom in all-natural products, aloe has become the ingredient of choice in many skin care and health products. Commercial aloe products include everything from creams to lotions to nutritional supplements in pill or drink form. The products often combine aloe gel with other ingredients to enhance the gel’s natural healing components. For example, an aloe-based Hawaiian product, called AhVahleen, combines aloe with some natural extracts taken from organic honey and a Hawaiian Kalo herbal plant. 

Natural Aloe-Based Solutions for Skin Care and Health

Aloe gel, especially when combined with other natural ingredients, can greatly enhance the skin and its ability to replenish skin cells. As skin cells die, new skin cells must replace the old to promote healthy skin. This also slows the aging process and helps keep the skin moist and beautiful. Aloe creams and gels on the market can help enhance this process. There are also creams and gels to help with itching, burns, cuts, psoriasis, shingles, and other skin conditions.

Aloe vera gel is also known to have antiviral, antibacterial, and antifungal properties, which allow skin ailments to heal while reducing risk of infection. Some aloe-based products are said to help soothe and dry up chicken pox as well. Aloe gel can work as a natural anesthesia to reduce or alleviate pain caused by burns, cuts, and skin rashes. For severe sunburn and/or sun poison, aloe vera gel can cool the burning skin and speed up the healing process.

How to Buy Natural Aloe Products

Besides growing your own aloe vera plants, the next best thing is to buy natural aloe-based products. But before buying, be sure the products are all natural with few or no added ingredients that could decrease the aloe’s beneficial properties. Read the ingredients on each product and learn why the ingredients were added. You’ll find some products, such as AhVahleen, to have added natural ingredients to enhance the product’s skin care and health properties. These products often provide more benefits than even the actual aloe plant alone.  

Shop online to find aloe-based products that are unique to your skin care and health needs. If you have psoriasis, for instance, look for creams, gels, or lotions to soothe this condition in particular. If you work in the sun or are outdoors a great deal, look for aloe products that can protect your skin from the sun’s harmful rays. If you have multiple needs for aloe, find a natural aloe product that offers many benefits in one. Start enjoying natural skin care and health today with the wonderful natural solution of aloe vera!

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Aloe Benefits for the Aging Skin

Aloe Vera - it’s been known as the world’s potted physician”.. For centuries, aloe and aloe products have been widely used for their amazing healing properties, particularly for burns, sunburns and many skin irritations. But just about a few decades ago, holistic beauty specialists began using aloe for aesthetic treatments because of its unique ability to stimulate skin cell renewal. And until recently, users and specialists have simply relied on results as no one knew exactly how it worked.

With the growing inclination to choose natural-based products over chemically derived preparations for medicinal and treatment purposes, scientific studies have been conducted to find out even more about the cell proliferating properties of aloe vera. Dr. Ivan E. Danhof, M.D.-Ph.D., president of the North Texas Research Laboratories, has led various studies on the various benefits of aloe on skin care and skin treatments. Danhof, more popularly known as the “Father of Aloe”, is recognized as one of the world’s foremost experts on medically active herbal molecules, and in particular the functional components of the aloe plant.

Danhof discovered that the interior gel from the aloe vera plant was found to enhance the production of human fibroblast cells sixty to eighty percent faster than normal cell production. Fibroblast cells are responsible for creating collagen which is the supporting protein of the skin. The cells are located on the dermis of the skin and through the normal aging process or during sun exposure, fibroblasts slow down their collagen production. As aging progresses, collagen quality is inevitably diminished and wrinkles become more prominent. Danhof discovered that apart from improving fibroblast cell integrity, aloe gel also accelerated collagen production.

So what is it in aloe that enables this ability to influence fibroblast cells and collagen production? No definite answer has been arrived at as of yet, but sugar-like substances called polysaccharides are known to have some positive effects on the aging process. Polysaccharides have the great ability to hold and bind moisture and may reorganize epidermal cells on the upper layer of the stratum comeum, which is the skin’s protective surface barrier. Cells in this top layer of the skin loosen as we age, so water escapes more easily. Skin cells don’t mature properly and as a result, bacteria and other harmful elements gain entry to the inner layers. These result in dry, scaly and sometimes itchy skin that usually comes with aging. By tightening the epidermal cells, the protective barrier is restored and the complexion becomes younger-looking.

Danhof also found proof that aloe gel’s ability to penetrate was four times faster than that of water in a separate study. This was quite an interesting fact since water is actually lighter and aloe gel is 99.5 percent water. Yet a mere half percent of another component serves as a super penetrator, taking the moisture in aloe deeper into the underlying skin layers which water cannot penetrate.

The skin is the largest organ of the body. It is also our primary defense against harmful elements and irritants in our environment. It definitely deserves the best protection and reinforcement.

Traditionally used as a natural remedy to address skin problems, aloe is our best defense against skin conditions associated with aging. Uniquely designed and formulated products containing aloe work to protect, moisturize and provide the essential nutrients and vitamins needed by our skin. Check out some of these products at: http://aloeandyou.co.uk/beauty-skincare