Yep. That’s the kind of blog title you get when I dream it up at night, waiting to fall asleep – and ACTUALLY REMEMBER IT. Good times, Charlie Brown.
Wonder why? Well, yesterday, before we left the lake, we paddled about in the lake with the dogs. Most of the time we were in a shaded part, but I kept swimming out to the dock and looking around like a prairie dog surfacing. Perhaps I mean an otter. In any event, I put myself in the sun, and paid for it. My shoulders are a raging tender red, and the line where my suit was only adds to the shock value. I’m at least grateful we’re past the age in life where boys find it funny to slap you really hard on the back/shoulders to get a reaction out of you. (Or worse, snap your bra… oof.) The thing is, there is one thing that works really, really well on sunburns, and even though it’s not attractive, or particularly fantastic-smelling, the bottom line (heh) is that it does ease a LOT of the sting.
Preparation H. Yes. Exactly. I was incredibly skeptical, lo-so-many years ago, when James’ grandparents suggested I slather myself in hemorrhoid cream after another ding-a-ling afternoon in the sun. But I woke the next morning to drastically diminished symptoms, and I have to say, I’m a believer.
Think about it – it’s designed to reduce inflammation and painful BURNING – which is exactly what you have goin’ on with a sunburn. And if you’re going to put it – cough – there, well, it’s certainly safe for your shoulders. The only thing I really dislike about it is the smell. Because of the shark liver oil. There’s a definite whiff of something fish/oil-ish but when your epidermis is a-throbbin’, I can tell you, olfactory nerves be damned, the other ones are screaming way louder.
Of course, the really smart thing to do is to slather with SPF 50, to prevent sunburn in the first place. But if you lose your brain, or you get so caught up in the joy of swimming with your labs and watching their faces in the water as they oh-so-avidly swim and retrieve, well, there are some stinky, helpful solutions ointments!
ETA: HAH! I just got this in my nightly email news. Check out THIS article in Adweek, about consumers using products as they see fit, vs. their original intent. First product mention? Preparation H. For ….muscle definition….? Huh. Well, the folks at PrepH want nothing to do with us, but I’m sure they’re content to take our money!
That’s amazing. I wish I would have heard about that all the years I spent burning like mad. Now I’m much more careful and try to remember the sunblock every single day. I remember I had some lotion that I can’t for the life of me remember the name of now… and it had this horrible medicinal smell, but it had camphor or something in it that was very cooling and soothing and I just had to use that. Worked way better than Aloe or anything else I tried.