I've mentioned that I'm sick right now, and all that nose-blowing has ripped up my nose skin something awful. I have a big aloe plant in my cubicle at work, so today I sliced off a "tentacle" to soothe my nose skin with. (The plant is huge, and looks like an upside-down sea creature trying to eat my desk lamp) So since I'm still too wiped out to write a real post, here's a series of pictures of how to get from leaf to usable gel.

Of course, this is not strictly dance-related, but I figure there are plenty of dance related reasons to have aloe around... to heal feet banged up from long hours practicing barefoot, soothe irritation from heavy stage makeup, etc.

First of all, snap or cut off one of the lower leaves:

Cut off a smallish segment of the leaf:

Slice open the segment:

Now for the one tricky bit. The part you want is the clear gel in the middle, but you want to avoid the flesh just under the outer skin, since it can be irritating. You basically want to fillet the leaf like a fish, running your knife parallel to the skin. This is going to be kind-of goopy. Take a moment and apply that wet goop to wherever you need the aloe goodness. This is the stuff you're going for.

Here' I've put the gel "fillets" in a small plastic container to store in the refrigerator. Store the gel in this form. The goop is inside the cells, so when you go to get it back out of the fridge, cut off a piece of the gel, then crush it with a fork or the flat side of a knife. This will release the goo. The added plus is that it feels nice cold from the fridge. It should keep in the fridge for a couple of days, but be sure to keep it in an air-tight container, or it will dry out.

The remainder of the leaf, I'm going to store in the freezer, wrapped tightly in tin foil.