How to Make Your Own Manuka Honey Eczema Cream

Can I use Manuka Honey as an Eczema Cream?

The short answer is, “yes!” Manuka Honey may be delicious, but it is far more than just a sweetener for your tea or to drizzle over your cereal. Manuka Honey contains special bioactive properties that help ward off bacteria, acts as an anti-inflammatory and assists in wound healing. MGO 250+ or higher is recommended– the stronger the MGO the more potent and rapid the effect.

Australia’s Manuka honey, particularly the MGO 850+ or higher can be good for treating skin ailments. A cream created from Manuka Honey can help provide relief for conditions such as eczema. For those of us suffering from this condition, relief can be very hard to come by, so this may not only be music to the ears (but also a soother for the skin).

How to make Manuka Honey Eczema Cream

This article outlines how to make Manuka Honey Eczema Cream using all natural ingredients that you can purchase from a local supermarket or health food store.

It is important to stress again that the chief ingredient is Medical Grade Manuka Honey MGO 850+.

The benefit of making it at home is the ability to tailor the contents of the cream to your specific needs. Eczema has already left your skin sensitive enough without adding in ingredients that may irritate it further.

The ingredients list is deliberately short and non-specific as regards quantities, so you can experiment with the ratios that you prefer:

• As a base use Coconut Oil, Almond Oil, or any natural oil suitable for your skin
• Add Australia’s Manuka Honey MGO 850. Somewhere between 15 – 25% of honey is a good mix, but if you don’t mind it sticky more is ok too.
• Optionally add some aloe vera gel (20%) for a different consistency. Aloe vera supports to soothe the skin in most cases – try it and see.

Make sure you use clean containers and seal well, then refrigerate the cream to preserve it for as long as possible. Always use a clean utensil to remove the cream from the jar to avoid possible contamination. Make in small amounts as required as the oil and other ingredients will have a shorter shelf life than the honey itself.

If you experience symptoms of eczema and have tried this cream, we would love to hear from you. Get in touch to let us know how you found the recipe.

Manuka Honey Benefits – How Manuka Honey Helps Eczema

Manuka honey is different to normal honey because it is made when bees forage on flowers of Leptospermum plants which causes the honey to have a high MGO activity. Leptospermum plants are unique as there are no other plants that are capable of producing such high levels of MGO. When this MGO combines with a protein called Apalbumin 1, that the bees put into the honey, it creates a strong anti-inflammatory effect. This can reduce excessive inflammation which can cause discomfort to extreme pain, damage to tissues and scarring. (1)

Australia’s Manuka is produced from Leptospermum plants growing in the coastal forests near Byron Bay. The MGO, in combination with the many polyphenols found in our bioactive honey, gives our manuka honey potent healing properties and many medical benefits that are well documented and approved by the TGA for topical use on the skin. These include abrasions, cuts and minor burns. It is also known to have an analgesic effect which means it helps to reduce pain at the site of inflammation or a wound. Many people with eczema have found a good manuka honey eczema cream to be of great benefit to soothe symptoms.

Eczema Cream Australia: Which Australian Eczema Cream is best?

There are many places that make commercial manuka honey eczema creams in Australia. However, just because you see “Manuka Honey” on the label doesn’t automatically mean it’s good for you. Make sure to always read the ingredients carefully as some can have some not-so-great additives, which may see your skin getting worse rather than better, and others may contain very little bioactive Manuka honey.

Remember that Manuka is the active ingredient and therefore the most important. The beauty of making your own eczema cream with Australia’s Manuka, is that you can use as much of this active ingredient as you would like!

See our recipe for Eczema Cream using Australia’s Manuka above.

We recommend making your own eczema cream if you would like to know where all your ingredients are coming from… and to ensure that your cream is as potent with Manuka as you can get it! If you’re finding the honey a bit messy to work with, try reducing the Manuka Honey quantity down to 20%. You’ll usually find that with a 20% quantity you’ll no longer be able to feel a sticky substance on your skin and it will have a more creamy consistency. For those that don’t mind their cream on the stickier side the more manuka the more potent your cream will be.

Homemade Manuka Honey Eczema Cream Ingredients

Where to get your ingredients – here is your shopping list:

We recommend any one of these Australian Manuka products:

• Australia’s Manuka 850+ (also available in a larger 500g jar)
• Australia’s Manuka 1200+
• Australia’s Manuka 1500+
• Australia’s Manuka Anti-inflammatory Honey Skin Repair 50g

Plus, combining these additional products:

• Coconut Oil or Almond Oil – you can usually find plenty of options from your local health food store or supermarket
• Aloe Vera: Do you have an Aloe Vera plant? Cut a stick from the garden (avoid the thorns) slice it down the centre and scrape out the pulp. No Aloe Vera plants in your area? We also found this pulp you can buy in a bottle from Aloe Vera Australia here. 

Do you want to buy a manuka honey eczema cream instead?

Not a fan of making your own cream? Stay tuned because the team are currently developing the best eczema cream around using your favourite bioactive honey. Hint, the active ingredient is Australia’s Manuka. Make sure to sign up to the newsletter for more information on when it will be launched.

References

The anti-inflammatory activity of honey. Professor Peter Molan Article on http://waikato.academia.edu/PeterMolan
https://dailyhealthpost.com/manuka-honey-kills-bacteria/
https://nationaleczema.org/eczema/ More than 31 million Americans have some form of eczema.