The Ingredient You Have Been Getting a Diluted Version Of
Aloe vera is everywhere. It is in shampoos, conditioners, scalp serums, leave-in treatments. It is one of the most ubiquitous ingredients in the personal care industry. It is also, in a great many products, present in name more than in substance.
Real organic aloe vera pulp — the gel taken directly from the leaf of Aloe barbadensis miller — is a complex material containing dozens of documented compounds. What a lot of products contain is reconstituted aloe: a powder rehydrated back into a formulation that is otherwise mostly water and surfactant, often at one to three percent. Those are not the same material, and the ingredient list is where you can tell.
What Is Actually in Aloe Pulp
The phytochemistry of genuine Aloe barbadensis pulp is genuinely interesting. Its main constituent classes include polysaccharides such as acemannan and glucomannans; anthraquinones including aloin and emodin; vitamins C and E; a range of enzymes; minerals including zinc and selenium; and small amounts of salicylic acid.
Much of the published work on these compounds is laboratory work — cell cultures and isolated tissue — rather than trials of aloe-containing shampoo on people's heads. That is worth saying plainly, because the gap between the two gets quietly skipped in most writing about this plant. Interesting chemistry in a petri dish is not a promise about your scalp.
What Aloe Is Actually Good For, Cosmetically
Two things, and both are modest and real.
It is a humectant. Aloe's polysaccharides hold water, which is why aloe-based products leave hair feeling hydrated rather than coated, and why aloe gel works as a light leave-in without the weight of an oil or a cream.
It feels soothing on an irritated scalp. Cool, light, non-greasy. That is a comfort benefit — which is a genuine reason to use something, and is not the same as treating anything. A scalp that is persistently itchy, flaking, sore or infected needs a pharmacist or GP, not a botanical.
Pulp Versus Extract
Long and Strong is built around genuine organic aloe vera pulp rather than reconstituted powder, synthetic gel, or aloe extract at one percent in a mostly-water formula. You can tell the difference by feel: real pulp is slightly viscous, faintly herbal, and cool on the scalp.
That is a formulation choice and a sensory one — it is not a claim that the finished product will do something to your hair that another product will not. Read the ingredient list on anything you buy, ours included, and see where the aloe actually sits.
What We Make
Tasic Pure Oils makes Long and Strong — a shampoo, conditioner and mist built around organic aloe vera pulp and coconut milk. Australian-made in small batches, with no sulphates, silicones, parabens or palm oil.
The aloe is there for the two things above: it holds water, and it feels good on a scalp that has been irritated by something harsher. Have a look at it here.
References
• Surjushe A, Vasani R, Saple DG. Aloe vera: a short review. Indian J Dermatol. 2008.
• Trüeb RM. The Scalp Microbiome. Exp Dermatol. 2018.
