Adventures In Solar Power
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It appears that summer has come early in the Pacific Northwest. Do I say that because the temperature is in the 80s this week? Naw, it was up in the 90s in May and I was still calling it spring. No, it now feels like summer because I’ve just achieved my first (and hopefully only) sunburn of the year.
This has led me to taking my homemade sunburn cream out of my refrigerator, letting it warm up just enough that I can scoop it out, and slathering it all over the red, stinging parts of me. Ahhhhhh….blessed relief! And since I have no doubt that I’m not the only person in the world currently enjoying a sunburn, it occurs to me that perhaps I ought to share the recipe.
I cobbled together my version of the recipe from viewing many such recipes on Pinterest. It’s so easy…you just need lavender essential oil, peppermint essential oil, aloe vera gel, and coconut oil. The coconut oil and aloe vera gel are excellent for burns in general, not just sunburn. Anytime I get a little too friendly with a hot surface in my kitchen, I grab this stuff and hey, presto! Instant relief. It’s been my experience that these two ingredients also reduce the severity of the burn. I know, someone’s going to want me to cite the medical study proving my point. But the only proof I can offer is that once, when I had a long and uniform burn on my arm from my oven rack, I used aloe and coconut oil on just half of it. And sure enough, not only was that half of the burn significantly less painful, but it healed more quickly and did not scar. In retrospect, since I was left with a scar where I didn’t use my burn potion, I wish I’d disregarded my desire to do my own “scientific study” and had just used the burn cream on the whole burn. Oh well. My pain is your gain. I have performed the same sort of “scientific study” with sunburn, and again, the treated part of the burn hurt less, healed faster, and peeled a lot less compared to the part of the burn that didn’t get treated with coconut oil and aloe.
The lavender essential oil is very soothing for irritated skin. And while the peppermint oil may seem an odd choice, it’s cooling on hot skin. This would not be the time to go with cheap essential oils…get the good stuff. I recommend Doterra but if you didn’t want to buy a membership, you could also get the peppermint oil and the lavender oil at Amazon. Even if you don’t use Doterra products, as long as you get high-quality oils, you should be fine. Your skin will thank you.
The recipe is super easy:
50 grams coconut oil
50 grams aloe vera gel
10 drops lavender essential oil
5 drops peppermint essential oil
Combine the coconut oil and aloe vera gel either in a glass bowl suspended over a pan of simmering water (bain-marie, if you want to be fancy and French) or else heated in the microwave on low power in short bursts. You only want to heat the ingredients up enough that you can whisk them together smoothly. Then remove from the heat, and whisk in the essential oils. This yields roughly 4 ounces (and fits perfectly in these jars). It isn’t essential to keep this in the refrigerator, but it will last longer that way. When you need to use it, it’s best to take it out of the fridge for long enough for it to soften a little…the mixture is rock hard at refrigerator temperatures. But still somewhat cool from the fridge, this mixture is very soothing on a hot sunburn.
If you have to get sunburned, at least you now have an excellent way to deal with it. You’re welcome!
