No. Think of aloe vera juice as cocoa powder, and aloe vera gel as a chocolate cake that happens to contain cocoa powder, but also contains a lot of other stuff.
Aloe vera juice is a thin liquid that’s visibly indistinguishable from water. That’s what you’ll want to use for any recipes that call for aloe vera juice. You can also make your own aloe vera juice by re-hydrating powdered aloe vera juice.
Aloe vera gel is the sort of thing you buy in a pump bottle at the drug store. It’s often bright green and in addition to aloe contains added colourants, fragrances, preservatives, and pH adjusters. This kind of aloe vera gel isn’t an ingredient that you should be using because it’s got so much other stuff in it you can’t be sure how it’ll perform or how it might impact the final product. It’s also got a completely different texture from aloe vera juice (semi solid vs. thin liquid), so that would be a bit like using yogourt instead of milk to make hot cocoa.
You can also get aloe gel/goo straight from the aloe plant, and while this stuff is lovely, I don’t recommend using it in anything that’s not going to be used immediately as it’s highly prone to spoilage and will take your lotion/spray/etc. down to moulds-ville with it.
Posted in: Substitutions
