Herbal superpowers: Nerium oleander’s folk tradition shines in modern use

Growing up, I liked to pretend my grandmother’s garden was a mysterious tropical Eden. She had the typical short white picket fence bordering the garden, and the matching archway entrance had long been covered by vines that curled around my fingers and brushed my cheek as I walked through. Grandma’s neat walking path took me through towering tomato plants, tantalizing mint patches whose scent seemed to follow me for hours after, and bushy, blooming sweet oleanders.

Grandma would tell me her garden had superpowers. I mistakenly thought she was playing along with my fantasizing, perhaps trying to get me into actually taking care of the plants rather than trampling them. I would imagine abilities for these plants:

“That bush is a truth serum!” I would tell her as she trimmed her darlings.

“This aloe can heal burns,” she said. I thought she just didn’t have a very active imagination.

I jumped to my next subject. “This flower can shoot lasers!”

“Chamomile can help you sleep.”

I happened upon one of my favorites, the oleander, which was growing strong with long narrow leaves and puffy white and red flowers. “That one,” Grandma said, before I could come up with nonsense, “is one of the most potent herbs in the world. It’s been used for thousands of years.”

I reached for a leaf, but found Grandma swiftly at my side. “Don’t pick at my plants, you know that. Anyway, it’s toxic unless used right.”

I was confused, remembering I’d been told never to eat oleander. How can something toxic be used as a medicine—for centuries? I would find that oleander had long been used to boost the immune system, as an antimicrobial, for skin care, and a range of other promoted uses. Grandma noticed my confusion. “Medicine is only good when used in a certain way. If you don’t follow the directions, use too much, or too little, you are not going to have a good time. Listen to the professionals. Let me show you.”

Following her into the house, I wondered what concoction she’d show me. She’d been working with an herbalist to stock her shelves with jars of liquids that made the room smell like flowers. Grandma brought fresh oleander to her herbalist, who had learned from thousands of years of folk tradition how to use the plant safely and effectively. “If you could get to the extract without damaging it, then you’d really have something,” Grandma surmised, like she was onto the next big thing. She was. 

As I grew into an herbal amateur myself, I kept an eye on what this powerful plant I’d come to know as Nerium oleander could do, and while it’s at the forefront of a variety of medicinal uses, as an aging adult, its skincare applications caught my attention. I was more interested in science than folk tradition when it came to results, and one product, NeriumAD, is at the forefront of this path. The patented NAE-8 extract from Nerium oleander is extracted via a patent-pending process that preserves the plant’s beneficial properties. This extract is used in a safe formula that, in clinical trials, showed an average of 30% improvement in the appearance of wrinkles and discoloration, a superpower that would have impressed me as a child. I think Grandma would approve.