Bye bye sunburn....the natural way

I learned in Mexico how to treat a sunburn...

It was my own of course. I was in my late teens and I had never had a sunburn before...but the Mexican sun got me. Aye Aye Aye!!!!

My Mexican friends were telling me to get some vinegar on that and fast! Vinegar!  Aouch! I thought, this is going to hurt, and my poor little shoulders were already on fire!

I put some vinegar on a facecloth and put the compress directly on my lobster red and almost crunchy shoulders with lots of apprehension.

But lo and behold! It worked wonderfully. I quickly felt more comfortable.

Later I understood that vinegar re-establishes the pH balance of the skin and really draws out the burning sensation. Now I would use some raw organic apple cider vinegar of course, not the white window cleaning stuff.

But, if you don't want to smell like a vinaigrette for a few hours, there is another trick that I suggest.

Mix together one tablespoon organic coconut oil with 1 drop of lavender essential oil and 1 drop of peppermint essential oil if you have both, or 2 drops of either one. Use only good quality essential oils so that they have the healing molecules to really help. The good quality oils usually have the Latin name underneath the English name on the bottle.

Lavender essential oil is known for it's soothing and healing properties with sunburns. You can use the lavandula angustifolia, or lavandula vera or lavandula officinalis. Do not overuse these precious products.

Peppermint oil Mentha x piperita or mentha piperita is often used to treat pain and to calm inflammations. The fire-like pain of a sunburn is quickly soothed by the fresh peppermint oil.

Organic coconut oil is also a skin treatment on its own. The synergy between the essential oils and the coconut ils is very soothing and healing.

These are 4 ingredients to keep in your kitchen or in your pharmacy, since they can be useful in more than one situations. 

Enjoy the sun!   Pretty soon you'll be shoveling some snow...

Michou-Marie