This is from http://www.succulent-plant.com/families/aloaceae.html on the aloe plant: It is important to use the correct species of Aloe for medicinal preparations, as some species e.g. Aloe venenosa are poisonous. Toxic reactions by sensitive individuals to Aloe barbadensis (Aloe vera) have been reported, despite its widespread, mainly safe use. Guess your just unlucky
Thanks for the info hedgemonkey I reckon I've been unlucky. Yes I could buy some aloe juice or the gel, but I'd much rather buy a plant that I can grow and use, seems somehow better and more rewarding to me. I'll be paying close attention though when I do as to what I buy! As for ACV I do use it to deep clean my dreads relatively regularly, but I never found it really softened my dreads that much so I wanted to try using aloe. In the past as far as I've gone for conditioning them is using bronners which I find works ok, just wanted to give them a little tlc....
my 1st thought when seeing that pic is it resembles aloe vera but looks different somehow so i do believe you may have a toxic variety aloe vera is well tolerated by most ppk thats why itas in so many things but since u had a severe reaction to an unknown aloe id do a scratch test on a proper aloe vera plant scratch your skin till its red and iritated and aply the aloe of a real aloe vera plandt and see if theres a reaction if not then go for it in the dreads i guess from now on we better specify aloe vera not just aloe
