Too Much Sun?

I’m sure we’ve all done it…. forgot to put on sunscreen, thought we didn’t need it, etc. I was guilty of it this weekend. I should have taken a picture, but you’ll just have to trust me. My forehead and cheeks were quite lobstery. I hadn’t reached blister territory, but I was still at the “that looks like it hurts” stage. I had remembered seeing some home remedies for sunburn on Pinterest, so I decided to look. One involved using black tea soaked cloths. I read further down in the comments and found that others had tried this method using green tea, and regular ole Liption iced tea bags. Apparently, the trick here is to brew the tea strong.

In my case I just needed to apply the tea to my face, so I just plopped three tea bags into a regular sized coffee cup and zapped it in the microwave for a minute and then let it steep for about 30 minutes. After it had steeped I put it in the freezer for about an hour to get it good and cold. Then for the next 2 hours I soaked a wash rag in the tea and just let it sit on my face. When the rag would cool down I put it back in the tea, and then back on my face. If you need to do this on large area just up the amount of water to a couple of cups and double the tea bags. You might also want to do it sitting in the bathtub or on a chair that won’t stain.  I would also recommend using old or dark colored wash rags, you don’t want to stain the good ones.

Once I finished with that the heat and stinging has dramatically decreased, but the skin felt quite tight. I had read about people putting Greek yogurt on burns to help sooth them, and as an added bonus they didn’t peel. I figured it was worth a shot since I had some in the fridge. I didn’t measure, I just spread it on my face like a facial mask and let it sit while I watched TV. It dried within a few minutes, but I just let it sit for about an hour. Then I washed it off and did it all over again.
I’m still not sure whether or not I am going to peel because the skin on my forehead is super dry, but when I woke up the next morning there was no heat, no pain and no redness. Now, I am no way advocated intentionally getting burned, but if you accidentally do it like me, then there is hope!

Labels: health and beauty, diy