Should I Put Aloe Vera Gel On a Scab?
Got a scab? Be careful! It is all too easy to turn a seemingly harmless little scab into a permanent scar if you don’t properly take care of yourself. Fortunately, by treating your skin with care and using aloe vera gel on a scab, you can help to heal your wound quickly and prevent scarring.
We love aloe vera gel because it is perfect for reducing inflammation, helping your skin to heal, and relieving itchy skin. This amazing green stuff is cooling and soothing to keep you comfortable while healing your skin.
So, should you put aloe vera gel on a scab? The answer is yes, and here is why you should do it and how you should go about properly caring for your skin.
What Exactly Is a Scab?
Before you can understand how to treat your scab, it is essential to understand what exactly a scab is. When you see that strange dark little piece of skin appear, it is the result of a complex process.
Within just a few seconds of cutting your skin open, your body uses platelets, sticky blood cells, that reduce the amount of blood that you lose. Once bleeding is under control, your body sends up white blood cells to fight against bacteria and prevent infections.
To keep everything in place, your body creates something called a fibrin, an insoluble protein that stops the flow of blood. When the bleeding stops, this little piece of protection dries out and turns into what we know as a scab.
Underneath this scab, your body is still at work. Behind this sort of bandage that your body makes, your body is creating new skin cells. After the skin is fully healed underneath, the scab simply falls away as it is no longer needed.
Why Aloe Vera Gel Works On a Scab
The effect of aloe vera gel on scabs, cuts, and scars has been widely studied and found to be more than an old wives’ tale! In fact, aloe vera gel is effective and safe as a treatment of burns, frostbite, psoriasis, cold sores, and countless other skin conditions.
Aloe vera gel is a great way of keeping your scab hydrated as your skin heals and, if your scab becomes scrapped away by accident (never, ever pick!), aloe vera can help. If your scab goes missing, just apply a little bit of aloe vera gel to the surface and allow the cream to create a natural bandage.
How to Choose an Aloe Vera Gel for a Scab
Not all aloe vera gels are created equally! In fact, a lot of aloe vera gels that you find in big box stores and pharmacies are a total waste of money.
Many aloe vera gels that you find for sale are often watered down liquid aloe vera juice or even dehydrated aloe vera powder. If you are getting one of these impostures that aren’t real aloe vera gel, you are going to get little or no effect.
To find a good aloe vera gel, it is essential to carefully read the list of the ingredients. Don’t just trust that you’re getting a good product based on what it says on the front of the bottle! Things like “100 percent pure aloe vera” or “made with real aloe” mean nothing. The only way to know the truth is by reading the ingredients listed on the back.
If the first ingredient listed is water, put it back on the shelf! The first ingredient listed should be aloe vera gel or aloe barbadensis leaf juice.
Source: harmonythaispa.co.za
How to Use Aloe Vera Gel On a Scab
Once you have found the right aloe vera gel, use it liberally. Be careful rubbing it on so that you don’t accidentally knock the scab off. Other than that, it is pretty foolproof. You can’t apply too much aloe vera gel, and there are no potential side effects so go crazy with it! The more that you apply it, the better.
Tip- Aloe vera gel works even better on scabs and cuts if you apply it before bed. Your skin’s natural healing system goes into overdrive while you are asleep so using an extra aid like aloe vera gel will help your skin heal even faster.
Drinking Aloe Vera Gel or Juice
While a lot of people advocate drinking aloe vera gel, it is not something that experts agree on. Countless online personalities say that aloe vera gel can provide a major boost to your immune system, help you lose weight, prevent illness, and offer other life-changing effects, but this hasn’t been proven.
After reading about aloe vera gel juice online, you might be tempted to speed up your healing process by adding this sweet stuff to your diet—but you might want to think twice!
While aloe vera gel has been proven to be completely safe when applied directly to the skin, it can have different effects when you actually ingest it. This is totally normal and shouldn’t make you worried about using aloe vera gel on your skin. After all, getting sick after eating soap wouldn’t make you stop putting soap on your skin, would it?
It’s important to note, however, that we aren’t saying that aloe vera gel juice is unsafe to drink. We are just saying that it’s not as clear cut as some health and wellness gurus claim.
It is true that aloe vera gel has been used on people’s skin for at least 5,000 years yet at the same time, back in 2002, the FDA stopped the sale of over-the-counter aloe vera laxatives because they were found to be unsafe.
It turns out that not all parts of the aloe vera plant are safe to be ingested. It has been found that rats consuming aloe vera plants are more likely to get cancer. While this does not necessarily reflect on the safety of aloe vera gel drinks that you find in countless health food stores and grocery stores, it does highlight some concerns with DIY blends and other juices. With this in mind, we recommend using aloe vera gel on top of scabs rather than ingesting it.
