You Need Aloe In Your Life and Here's Why

Welcome to The Cherry On Top.

Today's food blog is a bit of mixed bag. It's combining all things Cherry. Digital design, a fun and pretty free printable, food, beauty and health tips. Pretty cool, eh?

The hot topic is aloe. I always knew that it was great for skin and burns. We had an enormous aloe plant in our backyard in Florida. We only ever used it for burns, but it turns out you can and should use it for a lot more.  

Add some fun text to the design. I love the fun, sass of this one.

Simply click and download the image.

I've always had aloe plants around me and had no idea just how wonderful they are. I mean, besides how gorgeous they are and er hem, how easy they are to grow and keep alive. Every time I buy an aloe plant, it is tiny. I mean like 2 inches tall and an inch wide. I know, right? And every decade, I have to ditch it which usually entails putting it outside because it is an enormous monster and doesn't even fit in my house any more. Hehehe...

This poor baby got so heavy it fell over and broke. Those larger leaves are nearly 3 feet long! I had no idea what to do with all of this aloe. So, I went on a Pinterest hunt to see what I can do with it. To my delight, there was quite a few things to do with this bumper crop of aloe. Whoo hoo!

Years ago, I blogged about my hair. Lord, my hair! My hair is notorious! Hehehe...There is just so, so much of it and the older I get, the curlier it gets and the frizzier it gets. I tried the flax seed and water recipe, but I think I'm just too lazy for this method. You heat up a bit of water, throw in some flax seeds and shortly, you get a gel. Crazy, right? I have a difficult time separating the seeds from the gel and boy what a mess. I had more on the counter than in my hair. Though, the results were pretty darn good.

 

These two images are with aloe.

If you're finding yourself thinking it still looks frizzy, you have no idea where this hair came from. Ha! I found the harvesting of aloe rather easy, but a bit time consuming if you have a lot to harvest. There's also an easy trick ya have to do to get rid of the greenish yellow stuff called aloin. You can read the article I read to find out how to get the aloe out of the leaves.

Easy, fabulous results.

I put the freshly harvested aloe in small ziplock bags and put them in the freezer. Every time I need to nourish my hair (twice a week or if I need to look acceptable), I take the pack out and let it thaw. You'll get a bunch of juice that you can put in your hair either wet or dry. Yes! Isn't that so mega fab?! I love that I can put it in my hair when it's dry and not have to blow dry. It is not sticky at all which is even more great. If you do the freezer method and even if ya don't you'll have meat left over as well. This you can put in a small blender or chopper and zap it into a juice which you can also put in your hair.

I put the pure juice in a reused spray bottle and man did that work great, but it got clogged and stopped spraying. No other bottle worked. If you know of one that might, hit me up. It was by far the easiest way to get the stuff in your hair. It was ideal when ya just need to tame it a bit before leaving the house.

Apparently, aloe is excellent for slowing down the aging process. Say, what?! You can find out more about that at one of my favorite sites.

Read more about how aloe can help with diabetes, inflammatory bowel disease, cancer and much more.

You can put it in smoothies, too. Make sure you read more about that before you drink. I haven't dared it myself, but perhaps it could help you with a chronic problem you have where nothing else has worked. There are some precautionary measures you'll want to address.

In this blog, I share our lice story. Ugh! We suffered for years with lice and finally found the natural trick to not only get rid of our lice, but keep it away. This is another blog on hair care that I highly recommend. Again, they are all natural ideas and big, big time money saving techniques for dry, curly and or frizzy hair.

I didn't touch much on how easy it is to grow aloe. If you live where it is chilly, you'll have to keep them inside when the temperatures start dipping. I leave mine in year round until that last one that out grew the house. I put it in my new green house where it is doing just great. Despite how mutilated it got after it fell over and I harvest several of the leaves.

Aloe doesn't need a lot water. Honestly, I only ever give it rain water and that's it. It even grows well in areas of the house with little light. I just can't kill this plant and that says a lot. Maybe there is some symbolism there? If you use aloe, maybe you'll live longer, too? Wink, wink...