Why Is There Aloe On My Tissue?

Ever wonder why aloe is on your tissue? Aloe, a substance mentioned in the Bible, has been around for years. It is often included in skin care products. Any ideas? Aloe has over 200 varieties and has been in use for over 3500 years. So, what’s it doing on your tissue?

Anybody who has had a cold should know the answer. You don’t use just one tissue when you have a cold. If the cold is bad enough you will easily go through several tissues…or boxes of. Any mother knows that children will breeze through tissues. All of those tissues can make the nose sore and irritated. Aloe acts as a moisturizer to reduce chafing on the skin of your nose. It’s great for anybody who has a cold or suffers from hay-fever.

Tissues have always been good for a quick blow here and there. However, when you’re going through one right after the other the old nose isn’t so happy. Kids’ noses can easily become irritated from standard tissues. This makes a cold feel ten times worse. Not only do you have a sick child, but you have the added pain of a red and sore nose. Normal everybody tissue can be very abrasive and hard on the soft skin of child’s nose. It’s not so pleasant for adults either. In fact, it’s a very unpleasant feeling for just about anybody!

It’s been about a decade since manufacturers of tissue began adding aloe to tissues to make them easier on the nose. Originally only certain brands of tissue contained aloe, then soon every major manufacturer of tissues started adding aloe. Once you’ve used a tissue containing aloe you will not want to go back. Neither will your children. The difference is certainly very noticeable. Those who are used to regular tissues will feel a difference right away. It’s not an exaggeration to say you will never blow your nose the same way again.

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Alright, maybe that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but it does feel a whole lot better than a regular tissue. It’s kind of like the difference between sliced bread and a plain old loaf of bread. Sure, both are bread, but already sliced bread!? Much better! For kids it makes having a cold a little less painful. Any mother taking care of one or more sick kids knows that there are going to be plenty of complaints to go around. Tissues with aloe gives you one less complaint to deal with. You might even come away with a smile. Having a cold tends to bring out the worst in people. Anything that can make a cold even a little bearable is more than welcome. It’s like that commercial where the kid comes in from a cold snowy day outside looking like a snowman and melts back down to his kid self when he has a cup of soup. Think of blowing your nose with a tissue that has aloe as a way to melt away a little of the discomfort.

When aloe was first added to tissues it was a little frightening though. To be perfectly honest, it felt a bit weird. It was like blowing your nose in a silk scarf. It kind of felt like your nose would slide right off of the tissue. Some of the tissues even had flecks of blue or gold on them. For those of us raised on regular tissues, this was new territory. Today aloe on tissue isn’t so scary. It’s like iPhones and Facebook. It’s something that is now a part of our lives. It is also somehow comforting. Even when we grow up and no longer have our mothers there to come and pamper us every time we get a little sniffle or suffer through a bad cold, it’s nice to know that the tissue we grab will be gentle.

So, back to the question of why is there aloe on my tissue. The scientific reason is that it is there to reduce irritation from repeated use. The non-clinical reason is that is a little something extra to make us feel better. For mothers it is a way to offer some extra comfort to our children. For adults it is a way to get a little extra pampering. Think of it as chicken soup for the nose. It’s just something that makes a cold a little easier to deal with. Aloe is not a new discovery, and neither is a tissue. But together they are a combination that works, kind of like peanut butter and chocolate. There, that’s the last of my analogies.

Have a pleasant cold.