Most people love to feel the warm summer sun on their face (and the rest of their bodies!), but all too often they get carried away and end up with painful sunburn. Indeed, according to statistics in 2009 more than a third of adults in America suffered a sunburn.
One very effective and completely natural way of helping your skin to heal and relieving the pain is to use coconut oil to treat the sunburn. This is because it has anti-inflammatory properties and is known to help nourish and moisturize skin, as well as soothing and easing pain.
So how can we use coconut oil for sunburn? Let’s take a look now …
Using coconut oil for sunburn relief
A great way of using coconut oil for sunburn relief is to use it in conjunction with apple cider vinegar.
If your skin is sore and tingling, wet a cloth with cold water and splash some apple cider vinegar onto it.
Then apply the cloth to the affected areas of your skin to wet it thoroughly. This should provide immediate pain relief.
Your skin will soon dry from the heat of the sunburn. Once your skin is dry, gently rub some coconut oil into the sunburnt areas. For extra relief, you can mix the coconut oil with essential oils first. Peppermint is great for this due to its cooling nature.
As an alternative to applying the coconut oil topically, you can add a tablespoon of it to a nice cool bath and then have a long soak in it. This will help to remove all the heat from your skin and promote healing.
Over the next few days, continue to apply coconut oil topically to any affected areas to help your skin continue to heal and to minimize peeling.
Coconut oil for sun protection
You can also use coconut oil as an organic sunscreen for protection against the sun’s rays too, due to its natural properties. Just rub it onto your body in the same way you would any normal sunscreen.
Coconut oil’s sun protection factor (SPF) is 4. This means it blocks 75% of ultra violet radiation. This may seem low but is actually beneficial as blocking too much can do more damage than good as it prevents your body getting the vitamin D it needs.
Summary
Coconut oil can be used for both sun protection and as a treatment for sunburn.
If you are going to use it as a sunscreen you should take care at first, especially if you have pale skin which is susceptible to burning.
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