Honey makes your skin feel so incredible because of its humectant properties (the ability to draw & retain moisture), as well as its potent antimicrobial & antioxidant properties. Scientific studies have shown honey to be useful in treating abrasions, wounds and burns, since it accelerates healing and reduces pain, inflammation, infection, and even scarring.
Honey comes in different types, and is rated in different ways depending on which country it’s made in. The most important thing to pay attention to, especially if you plan on incorporating honey into your beauty routine, is picking the right type. The health properties of honey come from its enzymatic components. When honey gets heated up (also known as pasteurizing), almost all of those beneficial enzymes get destroyed. This leaves you with the kind of honey you can buy at any grocery store – it’s fluid and completely clear, and takes a long time to crystallize. It also lacks in quality nutrition; this is not the type of honey you want to smear on your face.
Instead, you should always go for honey that says ‘raw’ on it, whether it will be used in cosmetic treatments or for consumption. Raw honey that has not been pasteurized, clarified, or filtered – provided it is of the highest organic quality – is your best choice.
In most European countries however, honey will rarely be labeled with the word ‘raw’ on it, so look for a description of how it has been prepared. If it’s the good kind of honey (pure, raw, natural), it will say that the honey has been ‘cold slung’ – which means that it is extracted from the comb with no required heating.
Honey comes in different flavors, colors and texture, depending on the nectar source (the blossoms) visited by the honey bees.
When bees have access to large areas of one kind of flower, they produce honey with a flavor and color typical of that particular plant. Bees blend honey naturally by combining the pollen from many different flowers in areas where no one flower predominates. Honeys may also be blended during packing to create a specific taste. Honey is usually sold in a liquid form, but depending on the processing method, honey can come in many other different shapes & forms.
There is one type of honey that can definitely be considered as the queen bee (pun intended). Even though all types contain antibacterial components, these components are highly elevated in Manuka honey – Dr. Peter Molan of the Waikato University in New Zealand can take credit for discovering this fact. Through his research he found out that Manuka honey has a very unique and special set of properties when compared to any other kind of honey; the health properties of most types of honey is normally attributed to a natural mild hydrogen peroxide antiseptic – which is unfortunately easily destroyed by exposure to fluids, heat and sunlight. Manuka honey however was more potent & stable, its peroxide activity remaining high even when heated.
Manuka honey is a pricey product, though – mainly because it is a mono-floral honey (made by bees that interact with just one species of flower), derived from the pollen of the Manuka tree, which flowers for just 2-6 weeks a year.
Multiple studies have proven that the natural chemicals in Manuka honey contain antibacterial & antioxidant components. Similar to antibiotic creams, Manuka honey promotes healing and reduces the risk of infection to a large extent. This “liquid gold” contains several ingredients that allow it to act as an antibiotic; the most important one is methylglyoxal, or MG, which is only present in small quantities in other types of honey. The larger the quantity of MG contained, the more of an antibiotic effect a substance will have. Manuka honey can benefit your health in many ways, and it can be just as simple as adding a teaspoon to your diet every now & then.
Find out more about the science behind Manuka honey in this video.
Manuka honey can be applied directly to the skin, providing simple treatment for skin conditions like eczema, insect bites, burns, and surgery wounds. The honey also helps reduce scarring, accelerates healing time of wounds – and on top of that, it can be used in DIY face masks or to soothe sunburn. In case you suffer from acne or rosacea, it would also prove beneficial if used as a skin cleanser.
Many people who have introduced Manuka honey to their diet report that the honey can help with a variety of issues, including (but not limited to) bloating, acid reflux, indigestion, stomach ulcers and irritable bowel syndrome. Just stir a bit into your tea or hot water to soothe your stomach.
Whenever you’re feeling under the weather, a teaspoon of Manuka honey combined with hot water and lemon juice can help with getting rid of a cold. Because of its high antibacterial levels Manuka is also highly recommended in the treatment of ulcers, strep throat, cold sores, skin infections, cuts and abrasions.
Although Manuka honey is already more potent than any other type of honey, not every jar will have the exact same beneficial effect. Honey producers have developed a scale for rating the potency of Manuka honey. The rating is called UMF, which stands for Unique Manuka Factor.
This rating corresponds to the concentration of MG in the honey; not all honey labeled as ‘Manuka’ contains significant levels of MG. For Manuka honey to be considered therapeutic, it needs a minimum rating of 10 UMF. Honey at or above that level is marketed as ‘UMF Manuka Honey’ or ‘Active Manuka Honey’. UMF strengths can vary between UMF +10 till +25; the higher the UMF, the deeper you have to dig into your pockets for the goodies. Levels of UMF from 10+ to 15+ are ideal.
What can be slightly confusing is the use of another rating system for Manuka honey – MGO – which measures the quantity of methylglyoxal. A bottle of Manuka MGO 200+ for instance is the equivalent of the UMF 10+ rating, and an MGO 400+ is the equivalent of UMF 20+. UMF is the industry standard; the MGO rating is only used by Manuka Health New Zealand Ltd.
In rare cases you can find an NPA rating on a jar of Manuka honey, which refers to its ‘non-peroxide activity’ (coined by the aforementioned Dr. Molan). This Conversion Calculator can be used to see which UNF rating your Manuka has in correlation to its NPA rating.
Now that you’ve been inundated with all of the amazing properties of honey, it’s time to add the sweetest potion of them all to your beauty bag and experiment a bit with some homemade beauty treatments.
One of the easiest things you can do with raw honey is to smear it on your face as a mask. Raw honey can help unclog pores while at the same time delivering moisture to dry skin.
Instead of attacking pimples & impurities with overly drying chemicals, just try using a bit of honey.
Honey makes a great cleanser – although it’s best not to use it around the more delicate areas of skin (like the eye) to remove makeup. It does however dissolve other makeup, especially when mixed with natural plant oils & spices. Mixing honey with coconut oil or jojoba oil creates a balmy texture that is smooth enough to glide across your face.
Honey mixed with baking soda or ground nutmeg makes for a great exfoliator, best used once or twice a week. Baking soda offers light exfoliation while the honey soothes the skin. Since baking soda can be pretty drying, it’s best not to use this mix too often. Mixing honey with nutmeg helps unclog pores and takes care of blemishes; nutmeg is known for its astringent & anti-inflammatory properties and, like honey, nutmeg can reduce the infection & swelling around your clogged pores, leaving you with smaller spots and smoother scars.
Cover photo: Ale Vega
Tags: DIY, Skin Care
Csilla is a huge book nerd, and would talk your ear off about her favourite author for hours if you let her. Even though she works with online media, she secretly longs for the days when people spent time reading real books and real magazines printed on real paper instead of staring at various screens all day. But technological development stops for no one, so instead of fighting it, she decided to embrace the whole thing: she's now a published author on multiple websites, owns a Kindle named Jinx (after her favorite drag queen), and can frequently be seen bumping into trashcans, people and traffic lights around Berlin, reading and walking at the same time.
If you’ve been exploring the world of anti-aging skincare, you’ve…
First things first: your skin is just as unique as…
Listening to the Heart When I went through premature menopause…
