Search "honey and eczema" and you mostly find product labels, not studies. Honey does carry real antibacterial activity, and chemists have measured that activity carefully.[1] But only a handful of small human trials have ever tested honey on eczema, and those trials disagree with each other.
You know the moment. It is late, the insides of your elbows burn, and the steroid tube on the shelf feels like a decision you keep postponing. A jar of honey seems gentler. It feels like something you can try tonight without asking permission from anyone.
This guide covers what honey does to eczema skin, what the trials actually measured, which type of honey matters, how to apply it without making things worse, and where honey runs out of road. For the wider plan honey fits into, start with our complete eczema treatment guide.
One small manuka honey pilot reported lower lesion severity after seven nights.[2] A separate small trial testing kanuka honey against plain cream reported no clear advantage over the cream alone. Laboratory work adds a third, quieter piece, because honey does calm certain inflammatory signals in cells grown in a dish, which is still a long way from calming the skin on your arm.[2]
Key Takeaways
- Honey fights Staph and may help skin hold moisture, but it will not calm inflammation.
- Human evidence is thin: one small positive pilot, one trial showing no benefit.
- Manuka and medical-grade honey are standardized; raw jar honey is not.
- Most eczema honey creams list colloidal oatmeal as the active ingredient, not honey.
- Never use honey on infants under 12 months or on broken, infected skin.
Table of Contents
What Honey Actually Does to Eczema Skin
If you have ever smeared honey on a raw, stinging patch at midnight and wondered whether it was doing anything at all, here is the honest answer. Honey helps eczema in three limited ways. It suppresses Staphylococcus aureus[6], the staph bacteria that overgrow on eczema skin, it holds water in the outer skin layer the way a damp sponge does, a property called being a humectant, and it quiets certain inflammatory signals in laboratory dishes[2]. What it does not do is act like a steroid, so it will not switch off an active flare.
Four ways honey acts on eczema skin:
- Hydrogen peroxide release: an enzyme in honey called glucose oxidase makes low, steady amounts of hydrogen peroxide once skin moisture dilutes the honey, a slow trickle of mild disinfectant rather than one harsh splash.[1]
- Osmotic pull: honey is roughly four-fifths sugar and holds almost no free water, so it pulls fluid out of bacterial cells the way salt draws juice out of sliced cucumber.[4]
- Low pH: most honeys measure around pH 3.5 to 5.5, roughly the acidity of orange juice or black coffee, which suits the skin's naturally acidic surface film and slows bacterial growth.[4]
- Methylglyoxal: manuka honey carries high levels of this germ-killing compound, and unlike hydrogen peroxide it does not get broken down on living skin.[5]
Honey vs. Staph: the antibacterial case
Staph is the reason honey is even on the table. Most eczema patches are crowded with Staphylococcus aureus, and the worse the eczema gets, the denser that crowd becomes.[3] That bacterial overgrowth is thought to feed the itch-scratch cycle through staphylococcal toxins[19], which is why antibiotics get prescribed so often for eczema.
In the test tube, honey performs well against that exact organism. Diluted honey inhibits S. aureus, including methicillin-resistant strains that shrug off the usual antibiotics, at concentrations well below full strength.[6] The effect comes from several mechanisms stacked together rather than from one magic molecule, which researchers suggest may make resistance harder to develop.[1] If you want the bigger picture on skin bacteria, our guide to the skin microbiome explains how the balance goes wrong in eczema.
Honey as a humectant and lab-level anti-inflammatory
Honey's sugars are hygroscopic, meaning they attract and hold water, much as glycerin does in a standard moisturizer. Direct evidence for how well they bind water against the stratum corneum, the outermost layer of dead cells that forms your skin's weather seal, is limited on human skin. That is a plausible benefit rather than a measured one, and a plain humectant cannot rebuild a damaged barrier on its own. Our breakdown of how moisturizers actually work covers why humectants need occlusives and lipids beside them.
The anti-inflammatory story is more interesting and much less proven. In dishes of cultured keratinocytes, the cells that make up most of the outer skin, manuka honey reduced production of CCL26, a chemical distress call that summons allergy-driving white blood cells into the skin.[2]
The same laboratory work also calmed mast cells, the immune cells that sit in skin like tripwires and release histamine, the chemical behind much of the flush and itch.[2] Both results came from cells in a dish, not from anyone's skin, which is a long way from proof that a jar of honey will settle a flare on your arm.
The practical takeaway: honey has never come close to matching the strength of a steroid cream on skin, so a promising result in a dish is not the same thing as flare control.[2]
Mechanisms are cheap and trials are expensive, which is why the laboratory story about honey is so much richer than the human one. Since what matters to you is whether honey changes real skin, here is what happened when researchers put it on human eczema.
Honey and Eczema: What the Clinical Studies Show
This is the part most honey articles skip. Two small human studies carry almost all the weight, and they point in different directions, because neither enrolled enough people to settle the question and neither ran longer than a couple of weeks. No one has ever run a large trial of honey for atopic dermatitis, the medical name for eczema, in which neither the patients nor the assessors knew who got the honey.[8]
| Honey type | Design | Size and duration | Result | Evidence grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Manuka | Open label, one patch treated, matching patch untreated | Small adult group, 7 nights | Severity score fell on the honey-treated side[2] | Weak (unblinded pilot) |
| Kanuka | Randomized, controlled vs aqueous cream | Adults and children, 2 weeks | Reportedly no significant difference between groups | Moderate (small but well designed) |
The manuka honey pilot: a positive signal
Researchers asked adults with atopic dermatitis to apply medical-grade manuka honey to one patch overnight for seven nights and leave a matching patch on the other side of the body untreated. Across 14 people, enough to fill a small waiting room, the honey-treated patches dropped an average of 2 points on the Three Item Severity score, a 0-to-9 tally of redness, swelling and scratch damage, while the untreated side barely moved.[2] The same paper paired that result with cell-culture experiments, not with inflammatory markers measured in patients' skin.[2]
That sounds encouraging until you count the participants. The group was tiny, nobody was blinded, and patients knew which arm carried the honey. Expectation alone moves subjective itch scores.
The kanuka honey RCT: no better than plain cream
A New Zealand team ran the better study. They randomly assigned people with eczema to either a kanuka honey cream or plain aqueous cream, a basic water-and-oil moisturizer with nothing active in it, then had them apply it twice daily for two weeks before rescoring the rash. According to the published report, the honey group did no better than the plain cream group. Two weeks is short, but it is long enough for a real difference in an itchy rash to show up.
⚠️ What this evidence does and does not tell you:
Honey is plausible and cheap, but two weeks of controlled testing reportedly failed to beat an ordinary cream, so treat it as an optional add-on rather than a treatment.
Why wound-healing results don't transfer to eczema
Honey has a much stronger record in wound care. Reviews of burns, ulcers and infected surgical wounds report faster healing and lower bacterial burden with medical honey dressings.[7] People then assume the same benefit carries over to eczema, and that assumption is a stretch.
A burn is an open wound driven by tissue damage and germs, so a dressing that kills bacteria and keeps the surface moist does most of the work. Eczema is different: the skin is mostly intact, and the trouble comes from an immune system that keeps sounding an alarm, guided by inherited barrier weaknesses and overactive immune cells.[16] Honey is good at cleaning up a mess; eczema's problem is the alarm, not the mess. For a deeper understanding of eczema's immune roots, see our guide to what causes atopic dermatitis.
Clinical Pearl: In practice, the patients who report the most benefit from honey are the ones using it on cracked fingertips, chapped lips and fissured heels. That pattern fits honey's wound and humectant strengths, not its anti-inflammatory ones. For more on treating eczema on lips, see our location-specific guide.
📚 Related Resource
See our guide: Eczema Natural Home Remedy: 12 Options Graded by Clinical Evidence
If you still want to try honey, the next question matters more than most people realize, because the jar in your kitchen and the honey used in those studies are barely the same product, and that difference decides whether you are testing anything at all.
Which Honey for Eczema? Raw vs. Manuka vs. Medical-Grade
The honey in your kitchen and the honey in a hospital dressing share a name and almost nothing else. Potency, purity and consistency all change between the three tiers.
Raw honey, manuka honey, medical-grade honey: what changes
| Factor | Raw / store honey | Manuka honey | Medical-grade honey |
|---|---|---|---|
| Antibacterial activity | Highly variable by floral source[1] | Graded on the jar by methylglyoxal content or UMF, a strength rating[5] | Standardized and batch-tested[9] |
| Survives skin catalase | Partly, peroxide activity is broken down[10] | Yes, methylglyoxal is non-peroxide[5] | Depends on the source honey used |
| Sterility | Not sterile; can contain bacterial spores[11] | Not sterile unless processed | Filtered, then irradiated to kill spores[9] |
| Allergen risk | Highest: pollen and propolis (bee resin) residue[12] | Moderate | Lowest |
| Best use | Food | Small intact patches, short trial | The form used in the manuka pilot[2] |
One detail deserves attention. Your skin makes catalase, an enzyme that breaks down hydrogen peroxide almost as fast as honey can produce it, like a cleanup crew mopping the floor behind you, so the peroxide half of honey's antibacterial power fades quickly on living tissue.[10] Manuka's methylglyoxal keeps working regardless, which is exactly why manuka dominates the research.[5]
DIY eczema honey: how to make it safer
Most DIY eczema honey recipes blend honey with olive oil, beeswax or coconut oil. Dilution makes the mix spreadable and less sticky, but it also drops the sugar concentration that powers the osmotic effect.[4] You are trading potency for comfort.
⚠️ Three DIY rules:
Use medical-grade honey, mix tiny fresh batches and refrigerate them, and never add essential oils or fragrance, which rank among the worst ingredients for eczema-prone skin.[12]
Eczema honey creams: what the label really says
Read the Drug Facts panel on a honey-branded eczema cream and you will usually find colloidal oatmeal, finely milled oats suspended in the base, listed as the active ingredient and categorized as a skin protectant.[13] Honey sits further down in the inactive list, where it works as a humectant and, frankly, as a marketing anchor.
That is not a scandal, because colloidal oatmeal, finely milled oats suspended in the cream, has reasonable support for easing itch and shoring up the barrier in eczema.[13] It simply means you are buying an oatmeal-and-oil moisturizer with honey in it, not a honey treatment, so judge it the way you would judge any moisturizer. Whichever tier of honey you land on, how you apply it decides whether you get a fair test or a sticky night that leaves your skin angrier than before.
How to Use Honey on Eczema Safely
Honey on skin is warm, tacky and slower to rinse off than you expect, and it clings to sleeves and sheets. If you are going to put up with that, structure the trial so you actually learn something, because random dabbing on random nights teaches you nothing and still carries a risk of reaction.
Step-by-step: applying honey to an eczema patch
If you do only one thing: patch test first on skin that is not inflamed.
- Patch test for 48 hours: dab a small amount on the inner forearm, cover it, and check twice daily for redness, bumps or burning.[14] Our help doc on how to perform a spot check walks through the same method.
- Choose one small, mild, intact patch: skip weeping, cracked, crusted or infected skin unless your doctor tells you otherwise.[18]
- Apply a thin layer: use medical-grade honey straight from the jar, or thin it with a little warm water if the stickiness is unbearable.
- Leave it 20 to 30 minutes: for hands and feet, cover with gauze or a cotton glove and leave overnight, which is how the manuka pilot dosed it.[2]
- Rinse with lukewarm water: pat dry with a soft towel and never scrub the area.
- Moisturize immediately: apply your moisturizer while the skin is still slightly damp.
Run it once daily for one to two weeks, then judge. If nothing has changed by day 14, honey is not your answer.
That last step is not optional garnish. Eczema-prone skin is often short on filaggrin, a protein that helps the outer layer hold onto its own water, so moisture keeps escaping through the skin even on days when the rash looks calm, a slow leak researchers call transepidermal water loss. Low filaggrin is not the whole explanation for that leak,[15] but the practical lesson holds. You need to moisturize consistently, rash or no rash, which is the job Dr. Harlan designed a ceramide moisturizer for eczema-prone skin to handle. Our recommended moisturizers guide covers how to layer it.
Who should skip honey for eczema
⚠️ Do not use honey on:
Infants under 12 months[11], anyone with a bee, pollen or propolis allergy[12], and any skin that is oozing, filled with pus or hot to the touch[18].
Propolis, the resin bees use to seal the hive, is a recognized contact allergen and shows up in patch-test clinics regularly.[12] Reactions to honey itself are less common and less well documented, but they do happen. Stop right away if burning lasts more than a few minutes, if redness spreads, or if hives appear.
Days 1-2
Patch test on the forearm and watch for any reaction before treating a rash.[14]
Week 1
Apply once daily to one small patch and photograph it in the same light each day.
Week 2
Decide. No visible change means you move on to treatment that targets inflammation.
A clean two-week trial tells you what honey can and cannot do for your skin, and for most people the honest answer is "a little." Because that still leaves the itch itself running, the real question is what you build around the honey.
When Honey Isn't Enough: Building a Complete Eczema Plan Around It
Most people get here after trying one remedy at a time and wondering why the itch keeps coming back. Eczema runs on three linked problems: an overreacting immune system, an unbalanced population of skin bacteria, and a barrier that leaks moisture. Think of a house with a faulty alarm, unwanted tenants and a leaking roof, because fixing only one of the three still leaves you wet at 2 a.m.[16] Any honest assessment of a remedy asks how many of those three it touches. Our complete eczema treatment guide walks through how to address all three pillars at once.
Honey covers one pillar poorly; eczema has three
| Option | Calms inflammation | Targets microbiome | Moisturizes barrier | Severity range | Ages |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| OTC moisturizers | No | No | Yes | All | All |
| OTC prebiotic moisturizers (Perfect Repair) | No, companion moisturizer | Yes | Yes | All | All |
| Topical honey | Minimal[2] | Partial, anti-Staph[6] | Possible humectant effect | Mild, intact skin | 12 months and up[11] |
| OTC 1% hydrocortisone | Yes, lowest potency[17] | No | Depends on base | Mild only | Short courses[17] |
| SmartLotion eczema treatment cream | Yes | Yes | Yes | All severities | All ages |
Honey lands in one column and a half. Plain 1% hydrocortisone covers inflammation but only at the weakest potency, and long runs of topical steroid thin the skin.[17] Our guide to OTC hydrocortisone ointment covers those limits in detail. If Staph is a major driver of your eczema, dilute bleach baths are another option some dermatologists recommend.
SmartLotion: the anti-inflammatory step honey cannot provide
SmartLotion was built around the gap honey leaves open. It combines 0.75% hydrocortisone for genuine anti-inflammatory action with sulfur and other supportive ingredients, formulated for long-term daily use.
The formula also works on the second pillar. Glycerin, sulfur and grapefruit seed extract act as prebiotics, food that favors the friendly bacteria normally living on your skin so they can crowd staph out, while the moisturizing base supports the barrier at the same time. You can read the full background on SmartLotion and how Dr. Harlan developed it in his practice.
Honey does not have to leave your routine for this to work. Layer it however you like, then treat the inflamed skin with an OTC eczema cream that actually reaches the immune signal, and moisturize twice daily on top.
When to see a dermatologist
- Signs of infection: honey-colored crusting, pus, spreading warmth or fever needs same-week care.[18]
- Clustered punched-out sores: painful sores that all look the same size and shape can signal eczema herpeticum, a herpes virus spreading through eczema skin, and it needs same-day care.[18]
- No improvement after two weeks: failing OTC care means the plan needs changing, not repeating.
- Face, eyelid or widespread involvement: these areas need professional guidance before any home remedy.
📚 Related Resource
See our guide: Over the Counter Eczema Treatment: Every OTC Option, Graded by Evidence
Frequently Asked Questions About Honey and Eczema
Can honey cause an eczema flare-up?
Yes, it can. Propolis and pollen residues in raw honey are established contact allergens, and allergic reactions to honey on skin are documented.[12] Sticky honey sealed against already inflamed skin can also aggravate itch, so patch test before you treat a rash.
Is manuka honey good for eczema?
Manuka is the best-studied type because its methylglyoxal keeps working after skin enzymes destroy hydrogen peroxide.[5] One small unblinded pilot showed lower lesion severity after seven nights.[2] That makes it a reasonable add-on, not a treatment.
Can I put honey on my baby's eczema?
Not under 12 months. Honey can contain Clostridium botulinum spores, and infants lack the gut defenses to handle them, so hand-to-mouth transfer from treated skin is a real risk.[11] Our guide to natural remedies for infant eczema covers safer options.
Does eating honey help eczema?
No clinical evidence supports oral honey for atopic dermatitis.[8] The popular theory that local honey desensitizes you to local pollen has not held up in controlled testing. Enjoy it as food, not as therapy.
How long should I leave honey on eczema?
Twenty to thirty minutes is enough for most patches. For hands and feet, cover with gauze and leave it overnight, which matches how the manuka pilot applied it.[2] Rinse with lukewarm water, then moisturize right away.
What should I use with honey if my eczema is still inflamed?
Honey's anti-inflammatory effects are mild and lab-demonstrated, nowhere near steroid strength, so add something that directly targets active inflammation. Pair it with an effective eczema cream like SmartLotion, which combines 0.75% hydrocortisone with sulfur for long-term daily use, and keep moisturizing at least twice a day with Perfect Repair prebiotic moisturizer. Some people report mild stinging in the first few applications; if it persists or worsens, stop and rinse.[20]
References
- Osés SM, Rodríguez C, Valencia O, Fernández-Muiño MA, Sancho MT. "Relationships among Hydrogen Peroxide Concentration, Catalase, Glucose Oxidase, and Antimicrobial Activities of Honeys." Foods. 2024;13(9):1344. View Study
- Alangari AA, Morris K, Lwaleed BA, Lau L, Jones K, Cooper R, Jenkins R. "Honey is potentially effective in the treatment of atopic dermatitis: Clinical and mechanistic studies." Immunity, Inflammation and Disease. 2017. View Study
- Ogonowska P, Gilaberte Y, Barańska-Rybak W, Nakonieczna J. "Colonization With Staphylococcus aureus in Atopic Dermatitis Patients: Attempts to Reveal the Unknown." Frontiers in Microbiology. 2021. View Study
- Ayton J, Groves L, Berry J. "Chemical Composition and Quality Assessment of Apis mellifera Honey in Australia." Food Science & Nutrition. 2025. View Study
- Cokcetin NN, et al. "The Antibacterial Activity of Australian Leptospermum Honey Correlates with Methylglyoxal Levels." PLoS ONE. 2017. View Study
- Hussain MB, Kamel YM, Ullah Z, Jiman-Fatani AAM, Ahmad AS. "In vitro evaluation of methicillin-resistant and methicillin-sensitive Staphylococcus aureus susceptibility to Saudi honeys." BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine. 2019. View Study
- Chrysostomou D, Pokorná A, Cremers NAJ, Peters LJF. "Medical-Grade Honey Is a Versatile Wound Care Product for the Elderly." JAR Life. 2024. View Study
- Mohammed H. "Anti-inflammatory properties of raw honey and its clinical applications in daily practice." Qatar Medical Journal. 2022. View Study
- Postmes T, van den Bogaard AE, Hazen M. "The sterilization of honey with cobalt 60 gamma radiation: a study of honey spiked with spores of Clostridium botulinum and Bacillus subtilis." Experientia. 1995. View Study
- Brudzynski K, Abubaker K, St-Martin L, Castle A. "Re-examining the role of hydrogen peroxide in bacteriostatic and bactericidal activities of honey." Frontiers in Microbiology. 2011. View Study
- Harris RA, Dabritz HA. "Infant Botulism: In Search of Clostridium botulinum Spores." Current Microbiology. 2024. View Study
- Antelmi A, Trave I, Gallo R, et al. "Prevalence of Contact Allergy to Propolis—Testing With Different Propolis Patch Test Materials." Contact Dermatitis. 2025;92(5):349–357. View Study
- Criquet M, Roure R, Dayan L, Nollent V, Bertin C. "Safety and efficacy of personal care products containing colloidal oatmeal." Clinical, Cosmetic and Investigational Dermatology. 2012. View Study
- Uldahl A, Engfeldt M, Svedman C. "Clinical relevance of positive patch test reactions to lanolin: A ROAT study." Contact Dermatitis. 2021;84(1):41-49. View Study
- Moosbrugger-Martinz V, Leprince C, Méchin MC, Simon M, Blunder S, Gruber R, Dubrac S. "Revisiting the Roles of Filaggrin in Atopic Dermatitis." International Journal of Molecular Sciences. 2022. View Study
- Boggio CMT, Veronese F, Armari M, et al. "Skin microbiota in atopic dermatitis: victim or executioner?" Clinical Microbiology Reviews. 2025. View Study
- Mose KF, Andersen F, Røpke MA, et al. "Anti-inflammatory potency testing of topical corticosteroids and calcineurin inhibitors in human volunteers sensitized to diphenylcyclopropenone." British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology. 2018. View Study
- Domingos RR, Reboredo P, Monteiro AS, Sousa C. "Kaposi's Varicelliform Eruption: A Serious and Potentially Fatal Complication of Darier's Disease." Cureus. 2025. View Study
- Xu SX, McCormick JK. "Staphylococcal superantigens in colonization and disease." Frontiers in Cellular and Infection Microbiology. 2013. View Study
- El-Seedi, H.R., Eid, N., Abd El-Wahed, A.A., et al. "Honey Bee Products: Preclinical and Clinical Studies of Their Anti-inflammatory and Immunomodulatory Properties." Frontiers in Nutrition. 2022. View Study