10 Aloe Vera Facts An Acne Sufferer Must Know

Aloe vera is undoubtedly a fantastic topical treatment for acne. However, despite being mentioned in thousands of articles, it isn’t often that concrete information is given.

The words “soothing” and “calming” are dropped like they’re pulling names out of a hat. If you listen to every claim, you might start believing that aloe vera can achieve anything.

You might use it for the wrong acne problem, failing to access the abilities it does have, putting the potential of this awesome acne plant to waste.

Therefore, here are 10 cornerstone facts about aloe vera, to get you up to speed in your acne-clearing quest, and help you weather the storm of distractions.

 

One – it’s proven

For 3500 years, aloe vera has been used by totally unconnected corners of the globe. It has been written in ancient textbooks, carried by merchants along treacherous, crumbling roads from the Chinese empire,  and drunk by the Knight’s Templar circa 1191AD for energy and strength.

But only in the last 20 years have scientists in white coats proven that aloe vera clears acne. It’s a rare acne plant to have direct studies, not suggestive ones on inflammation.

Firstly, we have this combination of aloe vera with tea tree oil and bee propolis, mimicking a recipe you might slap together in your bedroom. After 30 days, total acne lesion founts fell by 63.7%, easily beating erythromycin at 43.5%, the old war horse of antibiotics which has since been superseded by clindamcyin. The subjects were 20 human beings in each group.

Then we have a highly suggestive study on psoriasis, acne’s cousin. The two don’t share the same bacterial strains but they do share an inflammatory root cause…

…which is why the 83.33% success rate achieved by 0.5% concentration aloe vera cream was so promising. 30 patients were in each group, and the placebo only cleared 2 (6.66%).

These studies are great, but what about the smoking gun? It arrived in a combination with tretinoin, the common topical retinoid (synthetic vitamin A). A separate group of 30 people was given the exact same cream, but minus the aloe vera. The result: after 8 weeks, the cream plus aloe vera group had stronger reductions in total acne, and the subcategories of non-inflammatory and inflammatory acne.

There were also less side effects. This doesn’t make it the best acne treatment, but the fact that it’s proven puts aloe vera in an elite club. 

 

Two – popular in Ancient Egypt

The most common historical factoid about aloe vera is that it was part of Nefertiti’s beauty cabinet.

Whether this is true has vanished into the mists of time, possibly forever, but it’s undeniably accurate that aloe vera’s healing properties were revered all over Egypt. There’s a picture in intaglio ink in an ancient Egyptian temple fresco, whose green blades closely resemble aloe barbadensis.

This dates back to 4000BC, and is the oldest suspected evidence of aloe vera use. By 1500BC, the classic Egyptian medical text Ebers Papyrus listed 12 unique aloe vera formulas, for diseased toes and wounds alike.

Pharaohs were buried with aloe leaves to help them “reach the other side”; they’d arrived at the afterlife when the fresh aloe vera planted near pyramids and the valley of the kings bloomed.

Aloe vera was favoured for burns, parasites, lung diseases, and even immortality. Nefertiti supposedly bathed in it, with a steady stream of pots delivered to her palace from distant lands. If this was a film, then there’d be a mother about to give her teenager daughter aloe vera as a present, before a sudden flashback to 4000 years ago revealing a parallel scene where a frightened palace servant walks to the throne and hands the Pharaohs a jar from a golden tray of other plant remedies.

Aloe vera is so powerful that ancient cultures with no clinical laboratories could easily deduce its skills. It’s not known whether only pharaohs and the elites used this green gel, or whether common Egyptians had access too.

 

Three – aloe vera can’t do everything

Like any topical treatment, aloe vera has many promising powers, but it will never dissolve pimples instantly upon contact.

The real birth of acne starts in your bloodstream, a place where no green leaf gel can access. It starts with a fiery elixir of inflammatory chemicals flowing through your veins, created by dodgy nutrition and eating too many inflammatory foods. Aloe vera can calm the result of that inflammation. It can do a fantastic job, but this gel can’t ever truly dig down to the root causes.

In short, it’s not the acne cure you’ve been looking for.

Likewise, aloe vera has a few missing features within the topical treatment sphere. Is your skin dripping with oil, which only intensifies the moment you dry it? You should probably look elsewhere – aloe vera has no direct studies on sebaceous gland activity.

Despite its endless compounds, despite its amazing studies and its hidden mysteries, I would never recommend aloe vera as your first natural acne strategy. That honour is reserved for reducing sugar, getting vitamin E and eating oily fish.

 

Four – it’s an anti-inflammatory powerhouse

That’s it for the doom and gloom through, and now, we’re back to our regularly scheduled propaganda, as funded by our generous friends from aloe vera HQ (just joking).

One of aloe vera’s best powers as a topical treatment is lowering inflammation. The redness and swelling triggered by immune system chemicals running wild in the skin. For example, in a study on rats, which scientists probably wasted a year finding in sewer tunnels and old barns before realising that the lab next door had a ready supply, aloe vera calmed down their purposefully inflamed paws. Neutrophils fell, the immune system chemicals which pump out free radicals.

The second study provided a solid statistic: topically applied aloe vera reduced the inflammation triggered by a chemical irritant by 47.1%. This study stimulated inflammation with p.acnes bacteria, applied aloe vera, and found drops in the specific inflammatory chemicals TNF-a and IL-8. That closely mimics the chain of events in a human skin pore. P.acnes sparks the fires of inflammation, and TNF-a and IL-8 are two chemicals known to increase.

If there’s any doubt in your mind, then simply open the history books. Before World War 2, most Danish households had an aloe vera plant for calming wounds. The Chinese Empire of 400BC called aloe vera “lu-hui” and applied it like crazy to rashes, irritation, and the wounds of frontline soldiers.

 

Five – its compounds are endless

The list of special compounds in aloe vera is one of the longest of any topical treatment.

Some are found across nature, but others are unique to the plant. The endless compounds are why aloe vera’s full powers will probably take 1 million years to discover (we’ll probably find the last one 5 seconds before the sun explodes).

For example, glucomannan is an unknown plant sugar, which is sometimes added to processed food as an emulsifier and thickener. It’s also found in elephant yam, but most importantly, glucomannan is able to cure the skin diseases atopic dermatitis and eczema in mice.

Lupeol is particularly special, calming the inflammation of a swollen rat paw by more than the pharmaceutical drug indomethacin (a 39% reduction versus 35%). Lupeol is found in very few other plants – mango and dandelion root are two. Similarly, the aloe vera compound c-glucosyl chromone defeated the drug hydrocortisone in a competition to calm an inflamed mouse ear.

Here’s the interesting thing: C-GC was only discovered 1996. What compounds are around the corner next?

Anthraquinones are a whole unique family of antioxidants to aloe vera, while its bradykinase is an enzyme that breaks down the inflammatory chemical bradykinin. Somehow, your skin has this chemical, and the juicy gel of an exotic desert shrub has the exact enzyme needed to deactivate it. It’s strange, but we’re not complaining.

One specific anthraquinone called aloe-emodin can reduce COX-2, the pro-inflammatory agent which painkillers target. COX-2 controls swollen and painful joints and swollen and painful pimples all the same.

The unexplored acne compounds of aloe vera give it unexplored acne potential. 

 

Six – potassium sorbate is the only threat

The only serious reservation we have about aloe vera as an acne remedy. Potassium sorbate is a chemical that appears in the vast majority of natural orientated aloe vera bottles.

Potassium sorbate isn’t even an outright acne villain; it’s a shady player with a potbelly, hanging out in a London alleyway, dealing fine goods that may or may not be stolen. Make no mistake that there’s numerous worse chemicals, like the sunscreen chemical oxybenzone that mimics estrogen. That’s why potassium sorbate appears in less chemical-filled bottles, usually ones with a tiny list of ingredients, also including citric acid.

The problem is quite simply that potassium sorbate is a preservative and it might indiscriminately the kill friendly bacteria sitting peacefully on your face. It’s a milder chemical, sure, but potassium sorbate has multiple powers. It depletes a bacteria’s ATP energy, warps its cell membrane, and sneaks into the cell membrane and lowers the PH. It’s not targeted and focussed against pathogens.

The real worry is that in a gut study, strains that pump out anti-inflammatory molecules were the most vulnerable to potassium sorbate, including clostridium tyrobutyricum and lactobacillus paracasei. This happens at even low levels of additives.

We’re lucky at least that potassium sorbate is squeaky clean when it comes to random inflammation. Only 2 of 146 Belgian responders had dermatitis when using shampoos and moisturisers containing it (study).

Although this doesn’t outlaw aloe vera to the acne wilderness, it’s the main reason to be cautious when using it. Potassium sorbate doesn’t affect aloe vera’s inherent properties, but the products the gel is encased in.

 

Seven – it’s a wound healing extravaganza

When you’ve popped a pimple in the mirror, giving into the all-consuming temptation, you’d do anything to heal the resulting mess faster. Aloe vera might be the solution.

Its wound healing powers are supported by numerous studies, starting with this rat one where they were deliberately burnt. After 7 and 14 days, aloe vera defeated a placebo for burning the second degree burns.

Think about it – if the craters of your dying pimples were 50% smaller after 7 days, your overall face would be in much healthier shape. The next question was why, and this 1996 study handed us the name – collagen. The youth protein which begins a steady decline after age 25.

Aloe vera was applied to wounded rats thrice daily for 14 days. A surge in collagen laydown was accompanied by a faster closure of the wounds. This ties in perfectly with gibberellin, a plant hormone of aloe vera, and a confirmed dabbler in the collagen-boosting dark arts.

That’s why aloe vera made my list of the top 9 collagen-boosting topical treatments (which probably needs revising as of 2020).

The jury is out on whether aloe vera can slow ageing through this collagen increase. The reconstruction process that goes into overdrive during wound healing, with all sorts of proteins flying in and converging like police cars to the scene of a crime, is very different to the steady cycling of collagen controlling youth and wrinkles. The potential is undeniably huge though.

Alexander the Great supposedly caught an arrow in the leg during a ferocious battle in Gaza in 330BC. Staggering across the North African desert, he was greeted by a messenger from Aristotle, who was carrying pots of aloe vera. Alexander was astonished when his wounded leg sealed up within just two weeks. From that day, he became a true believer.

 

Eight – the clock is ticking

Another fact that an acne maniac must know is that aloe vera can degenerate very quickly in oxygen.

In fact, it’s so notorious for its poor stability that it almost sank the entire industry. In the early 1700s, the Dutch planted vast fields of aloe vera shrubs on their newly colonised Caribbean islands of Bonaire, Barbados, and Curacas. The raw gel boiled into a solid, sticky black mass, after the enslaved workers cut off the stems of each individual aloe plant by hand (at least they were getting fresh air).

The goal: to rake in cash (which pirates would then steal). The problem: the aloe vera lost all its medical potency. Distant buyers in England and France were highly unimpressed with this poor quality aloe vera flooding out of the New World.

Consequently, people decided that this mythical leaf gel was exactly that – a myth. The aloe vera industry declined during the 19th century. Studies on aloe vera show that the deterioration begins at 6 hours and the complete loss of biological activity happens at 24 hours.

The importance for acne? The same compounds that vanish are the same compounds that clear your skin. The green sticky gel will remain; the anti-inflammatory anthraquinones will not.

That’s why you should always stick your aloe vera bottle or freshly squeezed juice in the fridge. One study found that aloe’s beta-polysaccharides vanished after 12 days at room temperature, but lasted for 44 days at 4 degrees celcius.

Never leave your aloe vera in the cupboard for years like a jar of coconut oil, or a 20 year old packet of raisins. 

 

Nine – it’s almost free from side effects

It’s a vital question for any topical treatment, and in its pure form, aloe vera passes this greatest of tests.

Aloe vera doesn’t have a single well-explained danger. Its pore-clogging potential is zero, it isn’t known to weaken the skin barrier, and no plant toxins have been identified. The only faint signal our acne radar has picked up is occasional reports of irritation. These tales of woe include sudden red rashes, mild eczema and tiny red bumps dotted all around. It’s perfectly possible that an unidentified allergenic compound exists, with so many rare compounds inside the gel.

However, the stories are so uncommon that it doesn’t dent aloe vera’s potential one bit. It’s infinitely gentler than tea tree oil or even cinnamon. Sun sensitivity is our second worry, in the form of concerned whispers circulating the acne underground. There are legitimate worries, but the signs point to aloe vera protecting against UV rays. Upon contact with human skin, it breaks down into metallothionein, an obscure substance that deactivates sunlight’s free radicals.

Again, it’s on the fringe, but not a real danger for a teenage acne sufferer stepping into the natural realm for the first time.

Neither are convincing – the only risk is skin so incredibly clear that an obscure law from 1670 bans it.

There’s one reputed side effect though – you’ll be protected from the malicious ways of evil spirits. Hang aloe vera above your front door, and the spirits will instead tip their hat to you and walk off calmly, according to ancient Mahometan Egyptians.

 

Ten – the craze is fairly recent

Despite being used for 6000 years, aloe vera has only become a widespread topical treatment over the last 50.

For example, a strange subplot is how cowboy hat-wearing oil tycoons came to dominate the 1970s aloe vera industry. It was their lucrative side business, and it started when rank and file oil workers drilling in the Middle East started applying the local green shrubs to prevent sunburn. Before long, the Kewanee oil company owned an entire island devoted to growing aloe vera. Billionaire oil tycoon H.L. Hunt owned plantations in both Florida and Rio Grande. Weirdly, it was oil men who first realised that aloe vera could become a global craze.

Other tales were more wholesome, like when a humble scientist called C.E. Collins discovered aloe vera’s value for radiation burns in 1934. Inspired, he created the Collins Chemical Company in 1935 (not the name you’d choose today), one of the earliest big aloe vera dealers.

Also, the shrub was originally most popular for the aloin latex it contains, a laxative. However, when the march of technology created superior laxatives, growers were in grave danger.

Over on Aruba, Jani Eman of the Aruba Aloe company was seriously depressed, until he witnessed locals rubbing aloe vera gel into their skin. The pieces of the puzzle slotted together in his brain, and he knew that his saviour was the cosmetics industry. He redirected his exports accordingly, and his company still survives today.

The momentum was building. However, what really opened the floodgates was Bill C. Coats extracting a stable form in the late 1960s.

He invented cold aloe pressing, and also seperated the outer aloin (laxative) rind from the precious gel within. From that point, aloe vera spread like the world’s most popular virus. Had it happened 50 years later, we’d only just be hearing about this strange and primitive shrub.

 

Conclusion

We could delve further into the aloe vera universe, but those are the key facts that an acne-clearing maniac needs to carry around. 

Got oily skin? Try sea buckthorn oil. Got red, painful pimples? Aloe vera might do the trick. Of course, diet comes first in both cases.

You’re now one step closer to being a clear skin master, with all the knowledge in your hands, able to see an acne threat and neutralise it with a lazy click of the fingers.

 

Thanks for reading!