Aloe Vera: Heal Post-Relaxer Burns, Wake Up Your Scalp and Shine On

Beloved readers, many of you already know the wonders of Aloe Vera gel for your hair. It has hordes of uses for the body over, I know, but this is a hair-related blog after all, so I’ll stick to how it benefits our lovely manes.

It’s a great “shine serum”, a great gel for laying down edges (for my relaxed all-stars), and making curls pop (for my natural and texlaxed cover girls), it mixes with butters to create a delicious curly pudding or moisturizing balm for all textures and chemical inclinations and nourishes the scalp.

I’d like to bring to you my beloved readers, two more uses for Aloe Vera for my relaxed cupcakes and natural and texlaxed lovelies.

Relaxed cover-girls, let’s talk BURNS. I know, the least pleasant part of relaxing. Normally when relaxer is well applied you don’t burn. I don’t, now that I know the proper way to apply them (and do it myself). However, mistakes happen and the last thing you want is to deal with a drawn out healing process. Anything to speed up your scalp getting healthy again is worth a look, no?

Enter in Aloe Vera: it has been scientifically proven to help heal burns.

How? To answer this, with some science, I turn again to The Beauty Brains. I don’t agree with every opinion they have, but their science is rock solid and they’ll gladly send you their credentials. For those that don’t know they’re a group of scientists who have worked in the cosmetic industry for years and love teaching uninformed consumers all the ways were being cheated. ^_~

They turned to Dr. Zoe Draelos, a dermatologist who published a fairly recent article in Dermatology Times, which you can find on Modern Medicine (the excerpt they site is in the link), as their expertise lie in chemicals –not what they do in the body.

What did they learn? You can read their full take…or glance at my Cliff Notes below:

The “goop” that comes out of an Aloe Vera plant when it is cut open is called mucilage.

This mucilage is 99.5% water. The .5% left is the special stuff. It has mucopolysaccharides, choline and choline salicylate.

Why are those long names important?

Mucopolysaccharides form a protective cover over burns. Choline salicylate is an anti-inflammatory that helps soothe burns skinned as it heals.

HOORAY! A way to add MOISTURE, SHINE, and HEAL at the same time? Plus its an ALL NATURAL REMEDY!

Now my texlaxed ladies and natural heart throbs may be wondering what’s “in it” for you, when it comes to Aloe Vera. Along with the benefits I listed above Aloe Vera is also amazing for making scalp scrubs!

Try:
1/4 a cup Aloe Vera mixed with 2 T brown sugar. Make it as you need it and massage it into your scalp – GENTLY, beloved readers, GENTLY. Once your scalp feels renewed rinse it away and enjoy a soothed, soft, exfoliated scalp ready to shove out brand spanking new, new growth! YAY! ^_^

This works for relaxed ladies as well. ^_~

One final note my dears –don’t use Aloe Vera that is reconstituted from powder. As the Beauty Brains learned, zapping it to powder kills all the goodies mentioned above.