Botany · Ch 10 — Economically Useful Plants & Entrepreneurial Botany
Cosmetics
Cosmetics
Traditionally, people across Southern India relied on home-prepared plant products — turmeric, green gram powder, henna, soap-nut (sigaikai) and reetha (usilai) — for skin and hair care. Cosmetics have since become a high-value, largely chemical-based industrial sector, with personal-care services now a major industry in their own right, though a growing awareness of the hazards of chemical-based products is pushing consumers back toward natural alternatives. Aloe (Aloe vera, family Asphodelaceae, formerly classed under Liliaceae), native to Sudan, is now cultivated at scale in Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. Its leaf gel and the compound aloin (a mixture of glucosides) act as a cooling, moisturising skin tonic, so the plant is a common ingredient in creams, lotions, shampoos, shaving creams and after-shave lotions, and is used in gerontological (anti-ageing) skin-rejuvenation applications. Products made from aloe leaves are f …
What this figure shows. A photograph of the Aloe vera plant showing its characteristic rosette of thick, fleshy, lance-shaped, spine-edged succulent leaves growing directly from a short central stem close to the ground. One or more leaves may be shown cut open to reveal the clear, gel-like mucilage inside, illustrating the source of the moisturising, cooling gel used in the skin-care and cosm …