Bath soak for dry or sunburnt skin

I was recently over excited by the prospect of sun and happily sizzled and fried to the point of no return and am now suffering the after effects, as I basically do every year. Normally I’m in Spain and just buy diaper rash cream (true story) and suffer it out. This time, I’ve decided to take a more holistic approach. I recently made a body butter for sunburns, whilst it has helped, it didn’t reverse my stupidity entirely. Some lessons you have to learn the hard way, even if it means learning the same lesson every year and somehow seem to unlearn it over the next 10-12 months.

I am trying a serious variety of DIY sunburn stupidity fixers, I opted to try a oatmeal soak bath. I’m really not into baths, at all. Its one of the key signs that I’m sick actually, it’s the twice a year phenomenon when I say ‘I want to take a bath’ and that’s it, showers otherwise for me. I just hate the idea of sitting in your own muck, eugh, it doesn’t agree with my germ OCD. Clearly it means I’m sick enough that I don’t care. 

So when all else fails, aloe vera and body butters aren’t providing the instant healthy brown glow (I live in a fantasy world of false hope), I decided to go for a bath, because I mean I’m already every shade of red and in pain, chances of a bath killing me are slim and I can shower afterwards = win win.

DIY Bath soak for dry or sunburnt skin

Makes: 4 – 1/2C portions Prep time: 10 mins

• 1 C (125g) Dried whole milk
• 1/4 C (45g) Baking soda
• 1/4 C (25g) Ground oats
• 5 tea bags of 100% Chamomile tea
• 1 teaspoon (5mg) of sweet almond oil
• 3 drops of Lavender essential oil
• 3 drops of Tea Tree essential oil

Now to make this happy healthy skin bath soak:

1. Using a coffee grinder (I have one specifically for my DIY body stuff), open your Chamomile tea bags and pour them into the grinder. Grind it down until it no longer breaks down the Chamomile, I found it ground about half the mixture and the rest were still whole size. Add in your oats to the ground Chamomile and grind until a fine powder.

 

2. Next take your essential oils and mix them in with your sweet almond oil. Once this is stirred together, pour it into your baking soda and mix it well, you are rubbing the oils into the soda to give an even mixture. I would suggest you do this in a separate bowl, I did it in a tiny bowl and made a horrific mess.

3. It was at this stage that I realised my tiny container wasn’t going to be anywhere big enough to hold the mixture (which is over 2 cups). I transferred the mixture to a Tupperware container that would allow me to properly mix and then added in the milk powder. I then put the lid on the container and shook it until it was completely mixed.

4. To use, add 1/2 cup of the oatmeal milk mixture to warm water and stir to dissolve. This will give you murky water. Soak in the bath for a minimum of 30 minutes to get the benefits of this mixture. You will need to rinse yourself and the bath off after the soak, as you will have bits of oatmeal and chamomile on you and can you can see, the bath gets  covered too.

 

My skin did feel better after this soak, however, this wasn’t quite the sunburn remedy that I had hoped it would be. I think when you’re red, in pain and utterly impatient in general, you hope for miracle cures and sadly this wasn’t one of them. I absolutely believe there are benefits to this bath soak, its just not a instant remedy for sunburn.  I think this is probably more of a winter dry skin soak, to help beat winter dryness and I would recommend it for that.

Facts that make this soak great:

• Dried milk provides moisturising and softening benefits for skin
• Both oatmeal and baking soda reduce inflammation and soothe the skin
• Chamomile and tea tree essential oils are anti-inflammatory, anti-fungal, and antibacterial.

I’d like to add that I’ve now also tried a bath with apple cider vinegar, not going to lie, it smelt horrific, it did sting and another remedy that didn’t quite live up to the internet speculation of sunburn cure.

Day 3, Im slowly starting to turn a shade of brown but still very much so have red painful to touch areas. Sadly my face has also started to peel, urgh. Im going to carry on with my regime of lotions, potions and soaks but I think the answer is… time. The body needs to adjust and heal naturally.

I feel like over the last 3 days Ive debunked a number of internet ‘answers’ to sunburn, none of which provide an instant cure, sadly.