Poinsettia Sap for Warts

I keep a poinsettia plant year round. The one growing in the house now is on it's fourth season. Not difficult to do, just like any other houseplant - sunshine and water - added bonus - the sap from this festive beauty beats chemical wart medicines - hands down!!

A small poinsettia like this will run about $5.00 in my neck of the woods. It will eventually lose it's red leaves (usually by mid January) and spend the rest of year just green, but still very useful. We learned of  using poinsettia sap (or milk as we call it) about 10 years ago when our oldest had a terrible plantar wart on his foot. After four attempts by the podiatrist to chemically remove the wart to no avail, he was just as frustrated as we were with conventional treatments failure to resolve this painful growth. The podiatrist is the one who told us he had once heard that poinsettia sap had been used to treat plantar warts.  Thankfully the last visit with the doc was just before Christmas and we were desperate to try anything - our local big box store had plenty of festive poinsettia's on hand.

All you do is break off a leaf and you will immediately see the milky looking sap of this festive winter favorite. Touch the sap to the wart and let dry. Do this two or three times a day and within just a few days you will notice the wart getting smaller. It has been our experience that you can stop applying the sap after a day or two (depending on size of wart) and will be pleased with the result. This wonderful treatment from mother nature is not just for plantar warts, but has worked on all kinds of warts, over the years, in our family.

I am not a expert but as I understand it - a member of the Euphorbiaceae plant family, poinsettia’s cousin is the rubber tree (Hevea brasiliensis), from which latex is harvested. Like the rubber tree, poinsettia also has latex sap.

A word of warning - **If you have a sensitivity or allergic reaction to latex, poinsettia sap may be problematic for you**.

In years past, many believed poinsettia to be toxic, however, today we know that a 50 pound child would have to eat some 500 poinsettia leaves (or bracts, as they are called) to become sick enough to die. They have quite a bitter taste so this scenario is not very realistic. I think it is more helpful to think of poinsettia as a non-edible plant, but not necessarily toxic.

My research also revealed that poinsettia sap has been used as a depilatory for hair removal.  Now I can't speak from personal experience about this application, but given the success we have had with warts, I may give it a try on a couple of persistent chin whiskers and follow-up with the results.

Poinsettia - Not just for Christmas anymore!!