6 ways to calm and heal your sunburnt skin

While wearing sunscreen is a great way to prevent sunburn, sometimes, despite your best efforts to stay sun safe during summer, you might still end up with a burn.

Sunburn often brings painful blistering, a stinging sensation when you put on clothes, and the inevitable peeling skin that follows.

Fortunately, if you do find yourself sunburnt, there are several remedies you can apply to your skin to help soothe the discomfort.

Here are six tips to alleviate your sunburnt skin.

1. Use Aloe Vera

This is an age old trick that most of us have tried when we’ve come home a little red after a day out in the sun. Aloe Vera gel soothes and cools your skin, taking away the burning and stinging feeling. If you’re prone to getting sunburn, it might pay to actually have a few Aloe Vera plants around the house – that way if you don’t have any bottled Aloe Vera gel, you can make your own. If you’ve got an Aloe Vera plant at home, cut off some leaves and slice them down the middle (without cutting the plant the whole way through). You can either lay the leaves flat on your burnt skin or squeeze the gel out and gently rub it on your sunburn.

2. Cool your skin with cucumbers

You know the old saying cool as a cucumber?  Well, it’s true! A cool cucumber, fresh out of the fridge, is a great way to cool your skin. Apparently, cucumbers contain antioxidants and analgesics that help your skin heal and give you some relief from the pain. All you need to do is either blend the cucumbers into a paste, or cut them up into slices. Then, rub the paste onto your sunburnt skin or apply the slices to your skin until your burn cools. The cucumbers will reduce the redness, pain and swelling of your sunburnt skin.

3.  Apply some witch hazel

Like Aloe Vera, witch hazel is another one of those natural products that can cure just about anything. One of the benefits of witch hazel is it contains tannins, which can stop infection, repair any damage and reduce the painful swelling of your sunburnt skin. Just dab a few cotton balls in witch hazel and gently dab them on your sunburn. You can also try putting three tablespoons of witch hazel in a bowl, dipping a cloth in it and dabbing the cloth on your sunburnt skin.

4. Have an oatmeal bath

Ok, this doesn’t mean throw some oats straight in the tub and roll around in them. All you need to do is put some raw oats or oatmeal in a sock or stocking, fill a bath with cool water and soak the oat-filled sock/stocking for a few minutes. Once you’ve done that, hop in the bath and squeeze the sock/stocking to get all the good stuff out of it. The desired result is cloudy bath water that leaves your skin feeling slick. Apparently, the oats and oatmeal contain polysaccharides, and these will coat your skin, helping to heal your sunburn.

5. Make a paste using water and baking soda

Just when you thought you’d heard of all the uses for baking soda, there’s another one! Simply make up a paste using cool water and baking soda, then smear it on your sunburnt skin and leave it on for a while. When the pain, heat and swelling has eased, rinse off the paste with cool water.

6. Cover your sunburn with a milk soaked cloth

A cool glass of milk can help quench your thirst on a hot day, and it can also help ease your sunburn. All you need to do is pour some cool milk into a bowl, soak a cloth in it and then place the milk-soaked cloth on your sunburnt skin. Not only will it take the heat out of your burn, the protein in the milk will help soothe, heal and protect your skin.

IMPORTANT LEGAL INFO This article is of a general nature and FYI only, because it doesn’t take into account your personal health requirements or existing medical conditions. That means it’s not personalised health advice and shouldn’t be relied upon as if it is. Before making a health-related decision, you should work out if the info is appropriate for your situation and get professional medical advice.