Honey is one of the most versatile ingredients found in nature and it’s not just for the bees. It is well known for its culinary uses, but not many people know that you can achieve great results in natural skin care using honey. Raw honey has antibacterial properties and has been used widely in India by the Ayurvedic practitioners. You can use use it for all scrapes and scraches, for acne breakouts, but also to moisturize dry skin. Read below what Dr. Sears has to say about the many uses of honey.
Honey is not just a great
natural sweetenerHoney reminds me of romance. I call my dearest friends honey when I want to remind them how sweet they are to me. But I also use honey for healing. Ayurvedic practitioners in India have used honey for nearly 5,000 years. Ayurveda is a holistic health system that evolved in ancient India. The term combines two Sanskrit words to mean “knowledge of life.” It’s the oldest system of medicine in the world. And it is still practiced widely in India, where the government recognizes it.
Not long ago, I traveled 8,000 miles to search out the roots of Ayurveda.
My travels took me to Ayurvedic universities, hospitals, clinics, pharmacies and ancient “healing houses.” Eventually, I arrived at Ayurveda’s birthplace in the isolated country backwaters of the south Indian state of Kerala.
I visited the original Ayurmana or “ancient healing house” and watched the Ayurvedic masters use honey for nearly every skin treatment they created.
They mixed it with other natural ingredients like lemon, milk, rice and fruit juices to lighten freckles, cure skin rashes and acne, and remove wrinkles. Even Ayurvedic facial scrubs for everyday use have honey in them.
A little farther east, in the dry, hot environment of the Arabian Desert, the most-used natural product to heal skin is honey.1 And honey, milk and oatmeal mixtures were also commonly used as facial beauty scrubs in ancient Egypt.
Honey can be best used in facial masks, mixed with other ingredients. Try mashing up a couple of ripe strawberries and mix them with a teaspoon of honey. Apply to your face and neck and leave on for about 20 minutes. Delicious and nutritious for any skin type. Do you have any favorite natural skin care recipes using honey? Please share with the rest of us.
Image from Wikipedia
