The days are getting longer, the mornings are getting warmer, and the kids are getting restless. Summer time is just around the corner and soon it will be time for swimming and barbeques. While going out and soaking up the sun is almost a must after a long cloud filled winter, nowadays it must be done with care and caution. While the rays of the sun are beneficial, bringing warmth, happiness, and much needed vitamin D, too much exposure can also wind up being very painful and dangerous. One of the most common casualties of the summer season are sunburns, caused when our skin is exposed to too much of the UV Radiation and consequently burns. Aside from the pain, the redness, the itching, and the flaking that occurs, getting burned too much can also damage your skin cells and lead to cancer later on in life.
While the simple solution is to be sure to rub on a good SPF cream or lotion to help protect our hides, oftentimes the long winter and that yearning to once again to bask in the warm glow of the sun overrides our common sense and we end up burning ourselves during those first days of summer. Once a sunburn happens, there is little you can do besides covering it up and allowing your skin to heal and curse yourself for needing to learn the hard way every single year.
Aloe’s skin soothing and healing properties
While there are many different traditional home remedies out there for mild to moderate sunburns, one of the most tried and true remedies come from one of this countries favorite indoor plants: The Aloe Vera plant. Just as it is a great soothing remedy from those burns from the barbeque, the inner gel of the Aloe plant is also a great thing to apply to sunburn skin. It will not only help to soothe away the pain, it will also aid in the healing process and even repair some of the cellular damage caused by those damaging UV Rays.
Aloe has been around for thousands of years, and there is a reason why desert dwelling civilizations like the Egyptians and Sumerians prized it for its medicinal properties. The watery gel of this “garlic of the lily family” contains salicylic acid which is the same substance found in aspirin, helping to bring pain relief to your painful red patches of skin. Aloe gel is also loaded with long chain sugars known as polysaccharides which perform the dual roles of skin protector and rejuvenator. Polysaccharides have strong antiviral properties, so the applied aloe gel will help prevent infection to your burned flesh. These long chain sugars also penetrate your skin cells and provide the basic building blocks they need in order to properly rejuvenate. Aloe Vera is also loaded with skin friendly Vitamin E, a powerful antioxidant which can help curb some of the free radical damage that the UV Rays end up causing.
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