After most sunburns, depending on your skin complexion and the damages resulted from the burns, the skin is going to peel. This may cause itching and pain influencing your daily activities. Although skin peeling is the body’s natural response in order to get rid of the damaged skin cells, it may lead to discomfort. Although this healing step is commonly elapsed within days or weeks, knowing what to do to speed the process up is beneficial.

What to do to make sunburn skin peel faster

Most sunburns are the first-degree burns, which commonly do not require medical attention and can be taken care at home. As long as you do not notice any damaged inner layers of the skin from the burns, you can do several things that are crucial in speeding post-burn skin peel and thus, minimizing resulted pain.

1. Avoid touching the peeling skin.

Applying proper treatments to relieve pain and discomfort resulted from sunburn is crucial, as this will inhibit you from continuously rub, scratch, or picking at the burn that will aggravate the skin condition. These three actions may keep you from getting rid of the skin peel faster. Excessive rubs and scratch on the burns may instead delay the healing process. In order to minimize itching, you can apply warm compresses onto the burned area occasionally.

2. Cooling down the burns.

It is important to inhibit the heat trapped inside the wound from aggravating the burned skin area. This way, we will be able to prevent excessive inflammation and peel, which is important for faster healing. To cool down the burned area, wash down the burn with cool water and pat it dry with a clean towel.

3. Keep the peeling area moisturized.

Skin peel occurring after burns may take days to heal. To make it heal faster and to minimize the occurrence of more skin peel, it is important to keep the area moisturized. There are a couple of natural remedies to moisturize the peeling skin area topically, such as aloe vera gel, which can be extracted directly from the plant, and apple cider vinegar, which is not only moisturizing the peeling skin, but also minimizing the resulted pain.

4. Reducing inflammation.

Inflamed, damaged skin cells will end up flaking. Thus, it is important to reduce inflammation of the burned skin to inhibit skin peeling. To reduce inflammation, take a soothing oatmeal bath. Oatmeal is a natural moisturizer, which helps moisturize, repair, and protect the skin. It is also an anti-inflammatory agent that is beneficial for treating a burn.

5. Keep the peeled skin area moist.

Cover the area with breathable gauze to protect it from the air. Moist environment is important for skin cell formation, which will help speed up the healing process. Exposure to the air may leave the skin peel to over dry, which inhibits healing process.

Things you should not do to make sunburn skin peel faster

In addition to the above things and remedies to take in order to make sunburn skin peel faster, it is important to avoid some actions and things that may aggravate the skin peel, such as:

• Applying harsh skin care products on the burn. This is going to irritate the area, which may end up causing more skin peel. It is thus important to use mild soap and lotion on the affected area during the healing process.
• It is important to cool down the burn to let go the trapped heat and thus, reduce inflammation. However, it is not advised to put ice cubes directly onto the peeled skin area, as this may cause burn and make the existing burn worse.
• Avoid or minimize scented skin products, as it may irritate the burned skin and cause more skin peel.
• Although it has been a famous old wife’s tale, butter, toothpaste, or oil should not be applied onto the burned skin, as it may make the skin peel and inflammation worse.
• Avoid peeling the skin on purpose, as it may cause bleeding and damage the skin cells. Make sure you let the skin fall off by itself. Moisture the peeled skin whenever needed with unscented moisturizer or natural skin-moisturizing remedy.