How to Soothe a Bad Sunburn

Summer is here, and that means beach vacations, afternoon cookouts and the occasional, unfortunate sunburn.

A sunburn is your skin cells’ reaction to damage from the sun’s ultraviolet radiation. In a first-degree sunburn, the top layer of skin, called the epidermis, is injured, resulting in redness, pain and swelling.

Second-degree sunburns are more severe because the next layer of skin, called the dermis, is also harmed. When this happens, blistering can occur because the epidermis and dermis become separated and inflammatory fluid floods in, causing the skin to bubble up.

On darker skin, sunburns are harder to notice at first because redness is less apparent. “Folks of color can also get sunburn, it just takes a lot more sun exposure for that to happen,” said Dr. Adewole Adamson, a dermatologist and assistant professor of internal medicine at the University of Texas at Austin Dell Medical School.

Sunburns also damage skin cells’ DNA, which, over time, could lead to skin cancer. One blistering sunburn during childhood or five or more sunburns at any age doubles a person’s risk for melanoma, said Dr. Jesse Lewin, an associate professor of dermatology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and a spokesman for the Skin Cancer Foundation.

Unfortunately, there’s nothing you can do about the long-term harm a sunburn inflicts on your DNA, but there are remedies to soothe your skin in the short-term.