Sweeten Your Health with Honey!

September is National Honey Month! To celebrate the end of it, we decided to give you the sugary details about how a regular dose of honey can enhance your health. We are not just talking about the naturally sweet goodness that drips like gooey gold from every tablespoon. We will inform you on how to use it to maximize its benefits in every part of your life.

What starts out as nectar collected from flowers by bees, later becomes the sweet, viscous fluid that we can add to coffees, teas, and other foods as a sweetener. Bees create honey as a means of storing food for the winter – kind of like how squirrels store acorns! They collect nectar, and keep it in their stomaches until they make it back to their hive. There, they regurgitate the fluid. The water in the nectar then evaporates slowly, resulting in honey. Now that we know why bees make honey, we can learn about what honey does for us.

 

A Sweet Thank You to Honey Bees for Raw Honey

The western or european honey bee has been making honey for many years. These environmentally friendly pollinators are  scientifically known as Apis Mellifera, meaning ‘honey-carrying bee’. The honey bees’ eyes are able to detect motion in 1/300th of a second and are made up of thousands of tiny outer lenses. They have one hundred and seventy odorant receptors that aid in finding food with their keen sense of smell. The honey bees’ wings can generate two hundred stokes per second, hence the reason you hear a ‘buzz’ from their flight. Flying up to 6 miles and  13-15 miles per hour, the honey bee can get ‘busy’ doing its natural daily activities.

Honey contains many healthful life sustaining enzymes, natural minerals, healthy vitamins, and even water. Plant derived medicines are still heavily relied upon in most of the world and the honey bee provides us helpful medicine in natural honey. Natural Pinocembrin, contained in raw honey is a powerful antioxidant that has been known to increase brain function. Pinocembrin, straight from raw honey, contains; anti-bacterial, anti-inflammatory, anti-microbial, anti-cancer, anti-fungal, and neuroprotective,  (protect neurons from injury or degeneration) properties. 

 

Sweet Treat for Skin

Raw, organic honey has natural qualities that can heal skin, and refine its appearance. It has a natural pH level of 4.5-6.1, which works well with skin’s natural pH range. The golden syrup helps you manage a wide variety of irritating skin conditions, including rosacea, eczema, and uneven complexion. If you struggle with aging, sensitive, or dull complexion, then honey may give you the key to experiencing a more youthful, even complexion. Other skin-related ailments that honey helps heal include: cuts, burns, and the need for retexturing.

What makes honey so great for your skin? You may ask this after taking a look at our web catalogue, which contains numerous products using honey as a main ingredient. For starters, it has antibacterial and antiviral properties that help keep the surface of the skin naturally cleansed. It is also naturally packed with the necessary vitamins and minerals for retexturing and boosting a healthy appearance. With doses of iron, manganese, copper, potassium, and calcium, as well as vitamin B, this syrupy sweet delivers a dose of delicious skin nutrition. Applying a mask containing raw honey, or using products that consist of honey, can moisturize skin, and heal and prevent blemishes.

How would you use honey? Many recipes float around for how to use honey on the Internet. I like to use two tablespoons of honey with two tablespoons of mashed up banana, and apply to my face as a mask. This helps eliminate acneic blemishes while providing deep moisture to my skin. You can also mix honey with avocado or mango for a deeply nourishing, nutrient-filled facial mask. If the idea of making a mini-mess with your groceries does not appeal to you, then try one of our facial masks or honey-based products. You can check out the Rose Petal and Honey Beauty Mask, Mango-Honey Smoothing Mask, or our Lavender-Honey Healing Cream as an alternative. We also carry Mango-Honey Body Cleanser as an all-over option for the rest of your body.

 

Hair-Healing Helper

Many a blogger and beauty editor sing the praises of honey as a savior for the hair. We join in the chorus, as we have experienced the bounty of benefits honey can provide each individual strand. In fact, using honey to relieve conditions like dry hair, split ends, and baldness is not just a modern concept from magazines. People of ancient cultures used honey as a remedy for their hair. Honey might help your situation, too!

As one of nature’s great humectants, honey works as an excellent conditioner by moisturizing and cleansing your hair with its antibacterial properties. By pulling water toward it, and helping skin and hair retain moisture, a hair mask with honey will deeply moisturize and heal. It will work the same for your scalp as it does your face – fighting off bacteria and dirt that clogs pores while feeding the skin a feast of vitamins and minerals. This stimulates growth and thickness, giving your coif a full-bodied look. It also retextures the strands of hair, helping the hair shaft bind together to relieve any split ends or strand damage. Plus, honey can exfoliate your hair and scalp, removing dead cells that might impede healthy hair growth.

How can you incorporate honey into your hair routine? Making a mask inclusive of honey can do the trick. I have a personal favorite of mixing one part honey and one part coconut oil together, before heating the ingredients up and applying them to damp, towel-dried hair. After leaving the mixture on for about an hour, I rinse it off. My hair is far more manageable and healthy looking. You can add a part of lemon or lime juice for oily hair, too. You can follow up this action with face naturals’ multiple honey-based hair products that might tickle your fancy. Our Mango-Honey Shampoo is excellent for deeply moisturizing dry hair. We also carry the Honey-Lime Conditioner to compliment it.

 

A Helping of Honey for Your Health

To give your body a boost from the inside, you can ingest honey daily to help you maintain a strong immune system and benefit yourself inside and out! You can mix honey in coffee or tea, include it in recipes, or make some awesome health tonics to drink on the daily. We gave you a look at what honey does for your body nutritionally, and how to incorporate it into your daily diet. Do not sell yourself short on the help that honey can give!

Raw, organic honey contains all kinds of amazingly healthful things, like vitamin C, calcium, and iron. Vitamin C is of high importance when building up a strong immune system, and tis the season to start on that with the onslaught of winter! Calcium helps build and maintain a healthy bone density, and iron is good for a healthy blood content. Its aforementioned antibacterial properties help stave off any immediate bacteria that might try to attack your body and make you ill in the near future.

Raw, organic honey also contains antioxidants called nutraceuticals. Nutraceuticals fight off free radicals, thus saving the cells that make up your body from damage. Honey also helps the body maintain good levels of blood sugar, thus preventing diabetes. If you work out regularly, then honey may prove helpful in muscle recuperation. It also provides an excellent source of natural energy for your body’s performance. What could be better? There are numerous ways to incorporate honey into your nutritional intake. One is sure to work for you.

 

Organic Honey and Healthful Diet Tips

One way to incorporate honey into your diet as a weight-loss and overall health tonic supplement is to mix lemon or lime juice with honey and hot water. This can help your body get rid of and digest the fat it has stored over time. You can also mix some cinnamon into the concoction to add extra flavor and help out your health. Cinnamon helps control blood sugar, and can starve out cancer cells.

Another option includes mixing honey and milk together. You could use almond milk, coconut milk, or soy milk as a base for this tonic, if you struggle with lactose intolerance. This will boost your calcium and protein intake in an easily digestible formula. It can also improve your ability to sleep, if warmed and consumed before bed time. You can add nutmeg to the mix for an extra kick of flavor – and to stimulate brain activity! Nutmeg can also relieve anxiety – according to ancient Chinese medicine. So, this could help you fall asleep faster while improving brain function.

Mixing ginger with raw, organic honey and hot water for a healthful tonic also proves beneficial for the body. If you struggle with aches and pains, then the ginger in this formula acts as an anti-inflammatory agent that works from the inside out. It can help manage muscle soreness after a hard workout. Some evidence also supports that ginger works just as well as ibuprofen for taking the edge off of bodily aches and pains.

 

Emery’s Honey Favs 

I have a few personal favorites as far as honey-based tonics are concerned. I like to mix lime juice with hot water and lots of honey to drink after lunch. The lime freshens my breath, and drinking some extra water is always helpful. Plus, the honey helps me stay fuller for longer. It also aids digestion so that my stomach is less likely to react to what I had for lunch.

I am also a big fan of tea. You can mix teas with honey, and you have a ready-made tonic for drinking! Mixing chamomile tea and peppermint tea with lemon juice and honey helps me sleep much better at night, and feel less anxious or stressed throughout the day. Sometimes, I put two chai teabags to steep in some milk with plenty of honey for a nutritious shake. I can drink it hot or cold – so it is perfect for any time of year!

 

Face Naturals – A Big Fan of Honey

We really enjoy the perks that honey offers us as people, and the boost it gives to our products. This is why we decided to post this awesome article about all the wonderful things you can do with honey. We already know lots of ways to incorporate honey into our daily lives – from homemade hair and face masks, to ingredients in our products, to ingesting it as a healthy formula!

If you crave more information on honey, our business, or our products, contact us to drop a line. If you have any honey-related ideas to share about ways to use honey – whether for skin, hair, or health – comment below to share with us and others! Bee a part of the face naturals family, and tell us your favorite way to use honey in honor of National Honey Month today!

Food for thought: Organic is the only option for better health. Please support organic farming (holistic approach to growing foods sustainably)!

organic \ȯr-ˈga-nik\ – grown or made without the use of artificial chemicals such as; pesticides, insecticides, herbicides, artificial fertilizers, synthetic ingredients, sewage sludge, bioengineering (GMO) or ionizing radiation. 

The world has many genetically modified organism (GMO) options!  We have narrowed our options to organic. Just taste fresh, organically grown verses GMO grown and you will taste + feel the difference. Just as important, your ten years older self will see the difference! ~ face naturals 

 

References 

• Skin Benefits of Raw Honey
• How Bees Work
• Top 10 Benefits of Honey for Skin and Hair
• 11 Amazing Benefits and Uses of Honey
• 7 Benefits of Nutmeg
• 20 Health Benefits of Cinnamon 
• Health Benefits of Honey
• Ginger’s Many Evidence-Based Health Benefits Revealed
• Honey Is a Health Tonic