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What's So Special About Honey?


 

INGREDIENT:

Honey

WHY DO WE LOVE HONEY?

Raw honey is such a simple ingredient, yet so luxurious. This golden substance contains pollen, propolis, vitamins, minerals, enzymes, amino acids, and antioxidants that all contribute to its soothing and healing benefits. 


WHAT'S THE HISTORY OF HONEY?

Honey has an ancient global story. Almost every continent has its own species of bees that nest and store honey. Mesolithic cave art in Africa, Asia, Australia, and Europe show the first recorded interactions between humans and bees to be about 20 thousand years ago. Civilizations that lived alongside bees simultaneously came up with their own methods for finding nests and harvesting them. Early bee hunting gave little consideration to the health of the colony and all parts of a nest were taken for use upon discovery. About 9,000 years ago, beekeepers began to develop different hive structures to domesticate bees and harvest honey in a way that wouldn’t damage the colony. Honey has historically been used to sweeten dishes, treat wounds and skin ailments, and promote healthy skin. A combination of honey and olive oil was popular in ancient Greece for both hair and skin treatments. Ladies of the court in ancient China, meanwhile, used masks made with honey and turmeric to keep their skin plump and nourished. 

WHAT ARE THE SKIN BENEFITS OF HONEY?

  • Sugar content in honey nourishes the skin as a natural humectant which increases water retention. It also increases microcirculation, which means more nutrients can get absorbed from the honey.
  • Antibacterial effects help to fight acne by inhibiting the growth of bacteria. Manuka honey has the most potent antibacterial activity, but high quality raw honey has similar benefits.
  • Anti-inflammatory properties help reduce redness and swelling of blemishes and other skin conditions like dermatitis and eczema.
  • Antioxidants promote skin elasticity. The darker the honey, the higher the antioxidant count, as long as the honey is minimally processed and, ideally, organic.

HOW DO I USE HONEY IN MY SKINCARE ROUTINE?

You can use high quality, organic honey as a face wash, a face mask, a lip treatment, and a spot treatment. Of, if that's too sticky for you, you can just shop our Honey Collection! We use manuka honey in our Lip Repair, and can't believe how much it helps dry, chapped lips heal in just one night. 

WHAT ARE THE HEALTH BENEFITS OF HONEY?

The gap between traditional medicine and modern Western practices can feel worlds apart at times, but honey manages to exist in both spaces without burning the bridge to either side. Honey’s ability to aid in healing is the topic of ongoing research with scientific evidence to support the viability of certain types of medical-grade honey in treating shallow cuts and moderate burns. These studies are based on the medical traditions of multiple continents and cultures that have historically used honey to topically treat cuts and wounds, burns, dermatitis, eczema, and skin diseases in ways that are still practiced today. Further research is still required to fully understand honey’s uses and limitations, but how neat is it to see an overlap of traditional and modern medicine! 

FUN FACTS ABOUT HONEY

  • What’s all the buzz? Well, that’s just the sound of a bee’s wings beating 11,400 times per minute. 
  • Honey doesn’t spoil or go bad. Archaeologists routinely discover ancient vessels of honey in Egyptian tombs that are thousands of years old and edible. 
  • A typical hive consists of 30,000 to 60,000 bees and produces up to 100 pounds of honey in a year. These busy bees are hard at work pollinating throughout the year since it takes nectar from 2 million flowers to produce one pound of honey. A hive will make two to three times more honey than it needs to survive, leaving plenty of surplus for beekeepers to harvest. 
  • Honey bees communicate through dancing! Different “dances” tell the colony about food source locations and directions to get there. 
  • While they don’t make honey, Osmia bees are a pretty rad genus in the bee world, comprising over 300 species. Also known as mason bees, since they use mud and clay to make their nests, Osmia bees are considered megapollinators, and tend to be single females who build their own nests with no help from the males (they die shortly after mating). One species, Osmia avosetta, makes nests from flower petals, creating a particularly artful home for her eggs.

With love and bee-utiful golden honey from us to you, 


Resources:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7036894/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7700082/

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S168411821500033X?via%3Dihub

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5661189/

  

The information contained in this post is for educational interest only and is not intended to represent claims for actions of honey. This information is not intended to be used for diagnosis or treatment of any physical or mental illness or disease.