By Allison Martin
Honey is a wonderful tool for healing the body, both inside and out. It is moisturizing, exfoliating, antibacterial and anti-inflammatory: all boons for our skin. Plus it soothes throats, relieves upset tummies and even fights off hangovers. But keep in mind that not all honey can be trusted; for buying tips, read “Bee Aware.”
1. Wow wash: For a moisturizing face wash, cleanse your face with honey. It’s very simple. Wet your face, scoop out a little bit of honey and smooth it over your face. It will spread easily. Massage into the skin, then rinse with cold water.
2. Pimple power: Banish unsightly pimples by dabbing just a bit of honey on the blemish. The natural antibodies in honey should help heal the pimple without harsh acne medicine.
3. Hair helper: Make a simple moisturizing hair mask with honey. Smooth honey over the ends of wet hair and let it soak for about 10 minutes. Then simply wash your hair as you normally would.
4. Hair rinse: This highly diluted hair rinse technique can help smooth fly-aways and increase shine. Combine 1 teaspoon honey with 4 cups warm water and pour over hair. Do not rinse out.
5. Bathe in honey: Add 1 tablespoon honey and 10 drops lavender essential oil to your bath. The honey will help moisturize your skin and the antispasmodic properties of lavender will help ease tense muscles.
6. Burn balm: Thanks to its anti-inflammatory properties, honey can help heal burns. For a minor burn, apply a cold compress, immerse the burn in cold water, dry the area, apply honey and cover with gauze, refreshing daily.
7. First aid: A natural antibiotic, honey can help heal wounds. Dab honey on a clean wound before applying a bandage.
8. Sore throat soother: Help ease the pain of a sore throat by swallowing a tablespoon of honey.
9. Steel your stomach: Honey may help coat and comfort an upset stomach. Soothe a nervous tummy by adding honey to lemon and ginger tea.
10. Workout booster: Supercharge your next workout by taking a spoonful of honey beforehand. The blend of fructose and glucose may give you an energy boost for endurance activities, plus you’ll reap the benefits of the antioxidants and vitamins in honey.
11. Be fruitful: For a special fruit bowl, drizzle herb-infused honey on berries and toss. It makes a great breakfast or a sparkling dessert.
12. Sleep tight: If you need a sleep aid, try a teaspoon of honey. Honey may help the body absorb the compound tryptophan, making us sleepy.
13. Hangover help: The readily absorbed simple sugars (fructose and glucose) in honey go straight into the bloodstream and help you bounce back if you were overserved.
14. Say cheese: Fancy up your cheese plate by drizzling honey over goat cheese or blue cheese.
15. Cough suppressant: Studies have shown honey may be more effective than the commonly used cough suppressant dextromethorphan, found in most over-the-counter cough medicines. Take a spoonful to help quell coughing. Note: Do not give honey to babies younger than 2 years old, due to a risk of botulism.
13 Comments
[…] 15 Household Uses for Honey […]
Good morning #10 and #12 makes no sense they out do one another? Is it because Honey interacts with the chemicals your own body is producing at the moment?
Very interesting article on Honey!
I get your newsletter. You know how annoying the popup to sign up for the newsletter is? Everytime you change a page here comes the popup. I am about done with this site. Just so you know.
tks…
I have talked a friend who suffers from allergies into the ‘teaspoon a day of local honey’. He is doing so on my word. Anyone have good results? I myself do not suffer much from allergies. Thanks.
I do not suffer from allergies, [but then, I eat my honey] I have heard that it does wonder for some folks. To work, however, the honey must be *local*. The theory is that the pollen contained in the flowers, mixed with the honey causes less problems and may even reverse the allergy by getting you body to get accustomed to minute amounts of the offending pollen.
By using honey made from the local flowers that cause you trouble in the winter, you get your body used to having this allergen within you in tiny amounts that do not cause the allergic reaction, and in the growing season, you are good to go.
It certainly a delicious way to test / taste the theory.
“Local” is the key to that .
He needs to get local honey from his area. The closer to his home the better. You want raw unprocessed and unfiltered honey.
Have him take 2 Tumeric tablets with the honey every morning – goodbye allergies !
Love all the information
‘Should help.’ ‘May help.’ ‘Can help.’ Eliminate all the supposed ‘uses of honey’ that in fact are old wives’ tales with no proof behind them at all, and then you’ve got about three items saying, in effect, ‘Honey tastes good with these foods.’
Let’s have some articles that give us solid, scientific facts. Yo don’t do any real good promoting bee-keeping by putting up fluff articles with unsubstantiated claims. In fact, when I go and research a lot of these claims, I find that if there IS scientific research (such as that eating local honey staves off local allergies) it turns out to be not true.
If you claim a lot of nonsense or unsubstantiated ‘shoulds’ and ‘mays’ and ‘cans’ about honey, you are preaching to the (easily duped) choir, but not to anyone who is interested in solid facts.
I am grateful for the information!. However, “underserved”? Own up baby (ha).
To Nel and Tina, I have had bad allergies all of my life and have had to use over the counter meds. I became a beekeeper three years ago and started using a lot of honey. This year i am eating a lot of fresh cut comb and i have not had any issues with my allergies. I am not taking any meds either. I attribute it to the honey and honeycomb i am eating. When i tell others about this i am sure to tell them” this is what has helped me, it May, Might, and could help them. Everyone is different. I don’t have scientific proof, but it sure has helped me and I’ll always inform folks of its benefits. Plus it just tastes good.