12 Benefits of Aloe Vera for Beauty (Natural Skin and Hair Care)

Aloe vera is one of the plants that are famous of its jelly like texture and its spiky look. Some people may find the jelly like sticky texture and the spiky look of aloe vera are disturbing but they will no longer think that way if they know how much health benefits of aloe vera for beauty especially. The best thing about aloe vera is, it is not only great for skin, hair and beauty but aloe vera also could be consumed as fresh beverages and excellent mixture for salad.

What is Aloe Vera?

Aloe vera is widely known as a tropical plant. Aloe vera comes from genus Aloe and could easily grow in tropical climate. Though initially, this plant is cultivated for the sake of medicinal uses but now aloe vera has been commercially cultivated for main ingredients of cosmetic products and beverages. It occurs that there are a lot of people who love the taste and texture of aloe vera in their beverages. However, the health benefits of aloe vera for beauty are the reason why many people are planting this plant not only as decorative purposes. Though there are a lot of studies that stated there is no significant proof that aloe vera is great for beauty but people who have been using aloe vera traditionally have shown and recently supported by specific studies to proof that aloe vera indeed great for beauty.

Nutritional Value of Aloe Vera

Though there are a lot of skin and hair care products that claimed to use aloe vera as main ingredients but still it is much better for you to use fresh aloe vera instead. The chemical-based skin and hair care products may give you instant solution but in long term they could be harmful not only for your pocket but also for your health and environment around you. The list of health benefits of aloe vera for beauty and how to use it below may encourage you more to plant more aloe vera around your house, especially for you who are currently living in countries with tropical climates.

Prevent Premature Aging

Antioxidants found in aloe vera are great to prevent premature aging to occur. The combinations of vitamin A, vitamin C and E are make a powerful antioxidants that will fight free radicals to stay away from your skin and promote healthy skin cell regeneration.

Natural Skin Moisturizer

As succulent plant, aloe vera could store water in its leaves. So, it has ability to hydrate your skin because it contains certain compound well known as complex carbohydrate. This complex carbohydrate has been proven to be effective for skin moisturizer.

Nourishes Your Dry Skin

Whenever you feel your skin is getting dry or lifeless, just take some aloe vera gel and apply it to the dry skin area. The result is not going to be instant but some nutrients like glycerin, sorbitol and sodium palmate will nourish your skin naturally so you could say goodbye to dry skin.

Solution to Acnes

The anti-inflammatory and antibacterial properties found in aloe vera are effective to treat acnes. Furthermore, aloe vera also contains polysaccharides and auxins that could accelerate the healing while vitamin C will make sure enough stock of collagen so there is no scar you should worry about.

Reduces the Scars Caused by Acnes

What you need to reduces the scars caused by acnes are enough stock of collagen in your body. Collagen has main function to keep the skin elasticity. However, some studies have stated that aloe vera could help increasing the production of collagen due to vitamin C compound found.

Reduces Blemishes

The presence of certain natural compound like auxins and gibberellings are effective solution to reduce blemishes. Regular application of homemade aloe vera face scrub could help you dealing with some skin conditions like blemishes or dull skin caused by the piles of dead skin cells.

Solution to Sunburn

The best way to treat sunburn is to keep your skin moisturized. Aloe vera contains a lot of water to help you moisturize your skin while the anti-inflammatory properties found in aloe vera will help to treat the affected layer of skin and antioxidants will help accelerating the healing process. However, you have to be careful, aloe vera may be able to treat sunburn but it is not preventing your skin from getting burnt, instead applying aloe vera to your skin under direct exposure of sun may increase the risk of sunburn.

Helps Reducing Tanned Skin

Tanned skin could be cool but when it is something you don’t plan, tanned skin could cause some discoloration that is not cool at all. To reduce it, applying aloe vela gel to the tanned skin area regularly. Some properties found in aloe vera are effective to help you dealing with discoloration condition in your skin caused by sun.

Natural Solution to Dandruff

Chemical-based hair product may treat dandruff instantly but aloe vera will deal with it gently. Instead of causing the dry scalp, aloe vera will preserves the hair integrity while at the same time removing the excessive sebum in the scalp that is the main roof of condition like dandruff.

Promotes Healthier Hair Growth

There are a lot of people out there have stated that aloe vera could make their hair grow faster though there is no scientific evidence to proof that statement. However, indeed there are a lot of studies that have proven how effective aloe vera in promoting the healthier hair growth due to some properties like vitamin B12 and folic acid.

Natural Hair Conditioner

Vitamin A, vitamin C and E are the reasons why aloe vera is an excellent solution to shiny hair and soft hair. That’s why aloe vera is a natural hair conditioner that will nourish your hair and at the same time keeping the scalp clean and healthy.

Excellent Solution to Hair Fall

Aloe vera is also great to treat hair fall. Some studies have proven the minerals compound found in aloe vera will prevent the hair to fall out. Vitamins and minerals found in aloe vera will make sure healthier hair growth and at the same time protect the hair from negative exposures from external factor like UV rays.

How to Use Tips

Aloe vera is loaded with natural compounds that are great for skin and hair. However, it depends on how you use it and by mixing it or adding it with other properties could enhance its ability. Below is the list of how to use tips or the best way you should do to get all the health benefits of aloe vera for beauty.

Homemade Face Scrub

Ingredients:

1 teaspoon of aloe vera gel

½ teaspoon of olive oil

1 teaspoon of oats

Instructions:

Mix all of those ingredients well.
They will form a paste.
Apply them to your face and leave them for around 30 minutes.
Rinse them off with cold water.

This homemade face scrub is effective to remove dead skin cells and could help revealing the fresh complexion and reduces blemishes.

Hair Care Treatment

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons of aloe vera gel

1 tablespoon castor oil

Instructions:

Mix those ingredients well.
Use them to massage the scalp before you go to sleep.
Leave it overnight and wash them off in the morning with shampoo.

This hair care treatment could help you dealing with some hair conditions from frizzy hair up to dandruff. Furthermore, the combination of aloe vera and castor oil is also great to promote healthy hair growth.

Cautions of Aloe Vera

Aloe vera may be great for some people but it could be harmful for some others. Though of course the need of everyone is different from each other and that’s why you should aware of some cautions of aloe vera, perhaps you are among those that should be careful with the reverse effects of aloe vera.

The list of allergic reaction case reported regarding aloe vera is quite long because the aloe vera gel could cause skin rashes especially to those who are sensitive to this plant.
Direct exposure of sun to the skin which has been applied with aloe vera gel could higher the risk of sunburn. So, one important to note is, aloe vera may be great to treat sunburn but cannot be used to prevent it.
The latex compound found in aloe vera could be toxic to skin in prolonged use especially in high dosage.
If you prefer to consume aloe vera for its benefits perhaps dosage is essential in this matter because some studies, the latex compound found in aloe vera could cause serious problems like stomach pain and even problems in liver.
Before you decided to consume aloe vera you should aware that aloe vera contains some strong properties that may affect your health, so be careful if you are currently taking certain medications because it may cause some negative interactions.

Aloe vera is not only bringing benefits for skin and hair, aloe vera is also great refreshment that brings a lot of benefits to human health from inside. Now, you have known the list of health benefits of aloe vera for beauty and you could learn more about health benefits of aloe vera for human health in a bigger picture such as aloe vera is rich of antioxidants and could act as anti-cancer or aloe vera is actually a delicious way to soothe sore throat and the list could go on forever. So, don’t afraid of the spiky look or its sticky texture because behind those things aloe vera brings a lot of benefits to human health.