Almost everyone knows what honey is. However, based on our personal experience, not everyone knows just how useful it can be.
Yes. It’s an edible product. We love how it tastes too. We’d also like to tell you that honey belongs just as much inside your stomach as it does on your face.
As it turns out, you can use honey as a facial skincare product. Because of how it’s produced from a document of live bacteria, plant matter, and enzyme activity, it makes for a perfect cosmetic product that can do everything from making skin glow, even out skin tone, heal scars, and even clear acne.
In its rawest and unpasteurized form, honey is a potent topical skin product for the face.
Benefits of Using Honey as a Facial Product
The anti-bacterial properties of raw and unpasteurized honey are what makes it so great for your skin.
We’ve known so many people who’ve found their skin conditions, including acne and even eczema, as well as candida overgrowth, improve significantly just by using and applying raw honey on their face.
Manuka honey, in particular, is being currently being studied right now as it shows the potential as an anti-acne product out of all types of honey.
Regardless of the type of honey, as long as it’s raw, applying it to your face is a good idea. It’s basically a natural steroid. It helps speed up the time it takes for your skin’s cells to heal blemishes, all the while reducing the inflammation they cause. In fact, Manuka honey is so effective at treating wounds that we’ve seen it used in clinical settings!
Raw honey also works great as a way to naturally exfoliate your skin so you can have that youthful glow that you’ve always wanted.
How Do You Apply Honey on the Face?
There are many ways to apply honey on the face, and mostly it depends on what you’re applying it for.
For example, if you want to use honey to treat chronic skin conditions, you can use it as a face mask. Simply apply it to a clean and dry face before you go to sleep and wash it off after ten to twenty minutes. You can also use honey to spot treat acne scars, blemishes, and more skin conditions.
Either way, how you apply honey to your face matters less compared to what kind of honey you use.
We prefer manuka honey because it hasn’t been processed yet. It’s raw and unpasteurized honey. This means that it still contains a lot of healthy bacteria responsible for making honey such an effective skincare product. The bacteria are what activate the immune system so that honey can work to minimize redness and inflammation when applied to your face.
Honey is also great when mixed with other natural ingredients. However, we can’t guarantee that it’ll be as effective or if it will be more effective. If you insist, you’ll want to learn from our mistakes and do a patch test first. Otherwise, you’ll end up with an allergic reaction just like we did, and it was not a great experience.
A favorite among many pantry skincare enthusiasts is mixing three parts honey with one part pure cinnamon. The mixture is warmed for a few minutes inside a microwave and applied to clean, dry skin for around 10 minutes. Once done, simply rinse it off with warm water and pat your face dry using a clean towel.
Obviously, you’ll want to do a patch test first. Also, don’t do this if you’re allergic to cinnamon.
Can You Use Honey to Brighten or Lighten Skin?
If we’re talking about science-based proof, researchers haven’t exactly found evidence that applying honey on your face can help make it brighter. However, it does make sense if this is indeed the case. This is because honey is a natural exfoliant. This means that it can help shed off all of those dull-looking dead skin cells to make way for the newer, younger-looking ones.
You can try this out yourself to see if it really is true. All you’d need to do is to wash your face first, pat it try, and apply Manuka honey.
Of course, you can use other types of honey. Just make sure that it’s unpasteurized and raw. We just prefer Manuka honey because it’s considered the most effective form of honey for skincare yet.
Now, we understand if you don’t like using honey because it feels sticky. It’s not exactly easy to take off.
One suggestion that we have and personally do ourselves is to dilute the honey using distilled or purified water. It’s important that the water is clean. In any case, once you’ve diluted the honey, it shouldn’t feel as sticky anymore once you’re applying it to your face. Just don’t forget to leave it on for a few minutes after applying it so that it has time to work its magic.
Is Honey Effective Against Scars?
Acne scars, and well, scars, in general, can lighten up and look better with daily application of raw and unpasteurized honey.
If you use honey as a face mask regularly, you should have seen the effects already.
Just keep in mind that researchers are still studying the full extent of how useful honey is against scars. As a result, it might not be as effective for you as it is for other people. Also, honey might not be a good topical treatment for scars caused by other means. Like, for example, burn scars or scars from deep cuts or wounds.
Are There Side Effects to Applying Honey on the Face?
Honey might have many benefits, but it’s not without its fair share of flaws. In particular, you should want to avoid honey if you’re allergic to either bee venom, pollen, and/or celery.
To see if you’re allergic to honey, test it out in a small area of your skin first. If it doesn’t cause any allergic reaction, then you’re safe. But, even if you’ve done this, and you feel that honey is causing irritation on your face, don’t hesitate to stop using it and consult a professional right away.
Also, we’d like to remind you that using honey as a face mask doesn’t mean that you sleep with it in. You should always remove it. Leaving it on is counterintuitive. This is because honey is very sticky and can attract dust as well as other acne-causing debris.
Conclusion
Raw honey is an inexpensive alternative to many facial skin care products available on the market today!
We can’t count just how much we’ve saved from using raw honey to treat anything from acne scars to dull or dry skin and everything in between and we’re confident that you could do the same too.
So, what are you waiting for? The least you could do is to try using honey on your face and see if it’s really true or if you’re allergic to it.
