Why Honey Was Considered an Elixir of the Gods and What That Means for Your Skin
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Why Honey Was Considered an Elixir of the Gods
When I began developing formulas for Organic Violet I wanted something that would draw moisture to the skin naturally and ancestrally. In my research honey kept appearing as the superior ingredient for exactly what I was looking for. But the moment that stayed with me happened in Costa Rica. My husband offered a sample of our tallow honey balm to an elderly Costa Rican man. When he heard what was in it his face lit up and in Spanish he called it "elixir de los dioses". The elixir of the gods. A man who had never seen our product, in a country thousands of miles from our kitchen, responded to honey the same way humans have responded to it for 8,000 years. That was a huge confidence boost for our development.
Honey is one of those ingredients that stops you when you start researching it. Not because it is trendy or because a dermatologist recently endorsed it, but because of the sheer weight of its history. Every ancient civilization that left records used honey. On wounds. On skin. In medicine. In ceremony. The word elixir comes from the Arabic al-iksir, meaning a substance with transformative or healing power. Honey earned that title independently across cultures that had no contact with each other. That fact alone is worth paying attention to.
The Historical Record Is Extraordinary
The oldest evidence of human honey use dates back 8,000 years, depicted in Stone Age cave paintings in Spain showing humans harvesting wild hives. From there the documentation across cultures is remarkable:
• Ancient Egypt: Honey was mentioned 500 times in 900 documented remedies. It was found perfectly preserved in sealed tombs over 3,000 years old. The Smith Papyrus dating from 2600 to 2200 BC contains detailed formulations using honey for topical skin applications
• Ancient Greece: Hippocrates, regarded as the father of medicine, prescribed honey for wounds, ulcers, fever, and skin conditions. In Greek mythology honey was ambrosia, the food of the gods, believed to confer immortality
• Ayurvedic medicine: Honey has been used in Indian traditional medicine for over 4,000 years to treat wounds, eczema, dermatitis, and burns. It remains in active use in Ayurvedic practice today
• Islamic medicine: The Quran references honey as a healing gift, and Quranic medicine documented honey combined with other natural ingredients for treating skin conditions
• Africa: Indigenous communities in Burkina Faso use honey as a skin cleansing agent and treatment for skin conditions. The Himba people of Namibia incorporate natural fats and plant materials including honey in traditional skin preparations
• Traditional Chinese medicine: Honey has been documented in Chinese medical texts for thousands of years for both topical and internal healing applications
These are not related traditions borrowing from each other. These are independent civilizations on separate continents arriving at the same conclusion about the same ingredient across thousands of years. That is amazing evidence.
What Modern Research Confirms
Modern science has spent considerable effort understanding why honey performs the way ancient cultures observed it did. The research is compelling:
Antimicrobial Properties
Honey inhibits the growth of at least 60 types of bacteria, fungi, and viruses. Its antimicrobial action comes from multiple mechanisms including its low water content which dehydrates bacteria, its acidic pH, the presence of hydrogen peroxide produced by an enzyme called glucose oxidase, and unique compounds like methylglyoxal found in high concentrations in manuka honey. Several medical-grade honey products have been approved by the FDA for use in treating minor wounds and burns. This is not folk medicine. It is peer-reviewed, clinically validated science.
Wound Healing
Research published in peer-reviewed medical literature confirms that honey aids in the healing of partial thickness burns significantly faster than conventional dressings. Its ability to maintain a moist wound environment, reduce inflammation, and prevent bacterial colonization simultaneously makes it one of the most multifunctional wound-care ingredients in nature.
Humectant Properties
Honey is a natural humectant, meaning it draws moisture from the environment into the skin and helps retain it. This makes it a genuinely active moisturizing ingredient rather than a passive one. Unlike occlusives that simply trap existing moisture, honey actively increases the skin's hydration level from the outside in.
Anti-inflammatory Effects
Honey contains flavonoids and polyphenols that have documented anti-inflammatory properties. Research has studied its application in conditions including seborrheic dermatitis, atopic dermatitis, psoriasis, and rosacea. The anti-inflammatory mechanism works alongside the antimicrobial one, making honey particularly effective for skin conditions where both infection risk and inflammation are present.
Antioxidant Protection
Raw honey contains over 200 identified compounds including amino acids, vitamins, minerals, enzymes, and antioxidants. Its antioxidant properties help protect skin cells from oxidative damage, which is one of the primary drivers of premature aging and chronic skin inflammation.
Why Raw Honey Is Not the Same as Commercial Honey
Most honey sold in supermarkets has been commercially processed and filtered to extend shelf life and improve appearance. This processing removes pollen, destroys beneficial enzymes, eliminates naturally occurring antioxidants, and reduces or eliminates the antimicrobial activity that makes raw honey therapeutically valuable.
Raw, unprocessed honey retains the full spectrum of compounds that ancient cultures and modern research have identified as beneficial. The difference between raw honey and processed honey is not subtle. It is the difference between an active ingredient and an inert sweetener. For skincare applications, only raw honey delivers the properties the research supports.
Why Honey Belongs in a Tallow Formulation
Tallow and honey are complementary ingredients in a way that is almost elegant. Tallow provides deep lipid-level moisture, barrier repair, and fat-soluble vitamins through its sebum-compatible, fatty acid profile. Honey provides surface-level antimicrobial protection, active humectant hydration, anti-inflammatory compounds, and antioxidant coverage. One works at the lipid layer. The other works at the surface. Together they address skin health at multiple levels simultaneously with two ingredients that have thousands of years of safe use behind them and a growing body of modern research confirming why they work.
This is the principle behind everything we formulate. Every ingredient must earn its place, complement what is next to it, and have a reason to be there that goes beyond marketing. Honey earns its place every time.
Once I understood the full scope of what honey does, the decision was simple. Antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory, humectant, antioxidant, and thousands of years of human validation behind it. I would have been crazy not to put it in everything I make.
The Bottom Line
Honey was not called an elixir of the gods because ancient people were unsophisticated. They called it that because they observed what it did and they could not explain it any other way. Modern science has now explained it. Over 200 compounds, antimicrobial activity against 60 pathogens, FDA-approved wound care, documented anti-inflammatory and humectant properties. Eight thousand years of human use followed by decades of peer-reviewed research pointing in exactly the same direction. That is an ingredient that has earned its place.
Honey is my favorite ingredient we use and honestly one of my favorite things on earth. Bees are a gift and they are absolutely essential to our environment and ecosystem. My hope is that every jar we sell creates a little more demand for raw honey and in some small way helps support the bees that make it all possible.