With the Fourth of July comes fireworks, cookouts, and pool parties—and if you are anything like me, with pool parties come sunburns. Yes, I have heard it a million times. “Lindsey, you have to put on sunscreen! Do you want skin cancer or wrinkles when you’re older? No. You don’t. Wear sunscreen you silly goose.” Now let me tell you, I wear sunscreen, I just happen to get tan (or turn red) very easily; this past Spring Break, I wore 100 SPF while on the beach for one brief hour, and I still got darker. So while I wore plenty of sunscreen on the Fourth of July this year, the sun was not on my side (I look like a lobster.)

This blog post is for all of my fellow lobsters who are looking for ways to treat their reddened skin. One trick that always works for me? Aloe vera. For those of you with aloe plants at home, cut a few leaves off and put them in your fridge. Wait a couple hours, and then apply the gel to your sunburn. If you are aloe plant-less like me, use the bottled form. The aloe should soothe your skin, prevent peeling, and give you that refreshing, cool feeling.

An at-home remedy that is quite popular among my friends is to use tea to prevent peeling. One friend of mine has gotten great results by applying tea bags directly to her skin. I’m more of a fan of making a batch of tea, letting it cool, putting it on a washcloth and putting that on my burn. Sometimes I’ll even put the cooled tea in a spray bottle and use that instead.

I have one last sunburn treatment for you all. Quick warning: I have not tried this yet, though I plan to in a few days. I’ll update you on my results. I’ve heard that mixing 1 cup of oatmeal, 1 cup of milk, 2 tablespoons of honey and 2 tablespoons of aloe makes for a fantastic concoction to put in a bath. The oatmeal prevents peeling and blistering, the milk soothes, the honey’s antiseptic properties prevent infection and we all know that aloe works wonders. If you are daring enough to try this before I do, tell me how things go! And if anyone has any sunburn remedies of their own, comment; I’m always interested to hear what you have to say.