Yes, I know. No, it is not hard! Here is the method:
1. Break a piece off the aloe vera plant 2. Use your fingers, a fingernail, or a knife to slit the green outer part open down one side. 3. Smoosh gooey insides on to your owie or smear on your skin as a moisturizer. 4. Profit!
[ETA: I forgot to say that based on a sad, sad experience involving my hand and the heating element of an electric oven (let us all cringe, amen), I can say that pieces of actual aloe plant are about 74,592 times better than the gel in a bottle.)
yup absolutely! We have always had the plants right in our kitchen window for exactly that purpose (and swear by them!) :) today we did some SERIOUS pruning of the "kitchen garden" and even leaving over half the aloe planted, we still have about 5 pounds of 'harvested' leaves. I often get jars of "healing salve" at whole foods and the herbalist which are aloe based. I was kinda hoping someone on my flist knew how to accomplish that rather than simply throw away the waaay overgrown leaves.
Oh, I see! I know two aloe tricks: one is that you can scrape the stuff out of the leaves, and then boil it down to a thick gel (which I imagine is the base of the salve!); you'll want to add a preservative to this (try 1 drop of grapefruit seed extract per ounce of gel) and you'll still want to put it in the fridge. On the bright side, I hear the way it goes bad is by growing mold, so you probably won't miss it :)
You can also scrape out the gel and freeze it while awaiting advice from someone who has figured out how to stabilize the stuff!
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1. Break a piece off the aloe vera plant
2. Use your fingers, a fingernail, or a knife to slit the green outer part open down one side.
3. Smoosh gooey insides on to your owie or smear on your skin as a moisturizer.
4. Profit!
[ETA: I forgot to say that based on a sad, sad experience involving my hand and the heating element of an electric oven (let us all cringe, amen), I can say that pieces of actual aloe plant are about 74,592 times better than the gel in a bottle.)
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You can also scrape out the gel and freeze it while awaiting advice from someone who has figured out how to stabilize the stuff!
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