Easy home remedies for sunburns

The spring and summer seasons bring lots of sunshine, which means more time outdoors, and more sunburns. While wearing sunscreen to prevent sunburn should be your first choice, it's easy to forget to apply or reapply it when you're having fun. If sunscreen slipped your mind and now you're left with a painful burn, you don't have to live in misery for days. 

Check out a few of these simple, natural remedies for a sunburn:

Potato Pulp
Head to the kitchen and grab a potato. Grate the potato and squeeze the grated potato to remove the juices. Set the juice aside. Grind the potato to a paste and apply it to your skin. After a few minutes, wash the potato off and massage the potato juice into your skin. Do this once or twice a day until the sunburn disappears, according to Search Home Remedy

Cornstarch/baking soda paste
Try this natural remedy recommended by Everyday Roots. Combine your cornstarch or baking soda with water until you get a paste. Apply this all over your burned area and leave it on until the pain has subsided. Rinse 

Tea
Relieve some of redness and pain from your sunburn with green tea and mint. Cook the tea per usual, adding fresh mint leaves to the water as the tea soaks. Cover and let set for at least an hour. Strain, chill and apply the tea to your skin using cotton pads, Everyday Roots suggests. 

Vinegar
Applying apple cider vinegar is another simple way to relieve the pain of a sunburn. Fill a spray bottle with the vinegar and spritz burned area. You can also apply with cotton swabs, according to Everyday Roots. 

Witch Hazel
Everyday Roots recommends applying witch hazel to burned areas using a soft cloth. Witch hazel contains tannis, which heals damaged skin and can reduce swelling.

Mint and Lavender Oil
Oil may sound like the last thing you want to add to a sunburn, but these natural oils can help relieve pain and ease the heat caused by sunburn, according to Healthy Treasures.  Mix peppermint and lavender oil with some water in a spray bottle. Apply the mixture to the burned area as needed and gently massage into the skin. This method can also help reduce peeling if applied as quickly as possible after you get the sunburn. 

As an added benefit, this remedy can be applied anywhere, even on the go, and doesn't leave you smelling like vinegar all day long

These photos show the difference between day one and day three of a sunburn. Rachel applied lavender and peppermint to her skin after her sunburn. The burn was completely gone in three days with little to no peeling, according to Healthy Treasures. 

Next time your forget to apply sunscreen, try one of these natural remedies to ease the burn. Like these ideas? Share them with your friends on Facebook. Tell us how you deal with sunburn pain in the comments below