Home skin care for sun burns: alternative sunburn treatments - Sunburn

Store brand sunburn gels contain minimal amounts of the healing ingredients like aloe. The rest of the gel could contain alcohol and other fillers. In addition, the gooey green gels can stain your clothes. Why bother with that when you can help treat your sunburn right at home?

Sunburn is something that most people experience fairly regularly during the summer season. Just because it is commonplace does not mean that the condition does not require special attention and proper care. Before you decide how to treat the burn, you first need to decide what kind of burn it is.

Determining the seriousness of your sunburn can be tricky since it sets in gradually. If after several hours blistering does not occur, then you may proceed in giving your sunburn at-home care. If you do start to see blisters, you would be well advised to see a doctor, as these blisters can give way to an infection. Do not pop the blisters! This is unsafe because it increases your risk of contracting an infection in the area. The blisters form to protect your skin, so leave them alone. Even if your sunburn is mild, you will likely experience redness, soreness and itching in the area that has been burned. Sunburned skin also feels warm or hot to the touch.

One common remedy for at-home sunburn care is the use of aloe vera. The aloe vera plant is a succulent plant which produces a thick gel-like sap; they can be purchased in almost any nursery. To get to the sap, you can quite easily snap off a leaf and inside resides the aloe gel. The gel does not need to be mixed with anything before applying. Simply apply the gel straight from the plant onto the skin. You may want to snap off the leaf and refrigerate it for 15 minutes before applying the gel to further cool off the burned area. You can apply the gel as often as necessary.

Taking a tea bath is another excellent way to soothe burned skin. For this to work you must use the right type of tea. Sweetened iced tea with lemon is not the best candidate for the task. It would be much better to use green tea, black tea or better yet chamomile tea. Heat the water as you usually would and add the tea bags. Allow the tea to sit for at thirty minutes to let it cool off. You do not want to pour scalding hot tea into a bath that is meant to soothe your already burned skin. When the tea is tepid, run barely-warm bathwater and add in the tea. Soak for as long as you like.

If the sunburn is located only in a small area, a wet but cool tea bag can be applied directly to the area, no bathing required.

Neither of the treatments listed so far will prevent peeling. Peeling occurs after the sunburn is several days old. The layers of skin that were burned dry up and gradually start to flake away. During the first few days of your sunburn, it is not a good idea to spread lotion over the area, as it can lock in the heat and therefore make the sunburn worse. However, once the skin begins to dry and itch, applying a moisturizing lotion to the area will help prevent peeling.

Taking care of your sunburn will help it heal this time, but next time, instead of applying products after youâ€™ve been sunburned, think about applying a sunblock before you venture out into the sun.