Burns Home Remedies | What are Burns and Scalds? | Burns Home Remedies to Avoid | Types and Levels of Burns | Tips to Heal Burn Quickly | Topics Related to Burns Home Remedies
17 Best Home Remedies for Minor Burns
- Cool Burned Skin: For minor first and second degree burns, use a leaf from an aloe plant for instant relief. Make a paste of fresh gel of Aloe Vera with a pinch of turmeric powder. According to recent research Aloe Vera is useful for sunburn as well as radiation burn. Use of ghee or coconut oil also gives same impact.
- Simple Home Remedy: Crush blueberries and extract the juice. Keep in the refrigerator or freezer to use on burns or scalds in the case of an emergency.
- Stop Pain Instantly: Cilantro is beneficial for burns. Make fresh cilantro juice by placing a handful of cilantro in the blender with about 1/3 cup of water. Strain. Take the juice internally (2 teaspoons 3 times a day), and put some of the pulp directly on the skin.
- Promote Healing: Gotu kola is a small creeping plant, which grows in the wild throughout India. It is the herb which has ability to stimulate repair of damaged tissue. Apply as a lotion to the skin to treat minor burns.
- St. John’s wort can be used directly on the burn to cool and soothe.
- Effective First Aid: The most effective way to treat a burn is with cold. Immediate application of something cold, such as ice or cold water, is the best remedy. If you have no ice cubes, use a bag of frozen vegetables from the freezer. Then apply hypericum lotion (about 10 drops of mother tincture, in a cup of water).
- First and Second Degree Burns: Another home remedy suggests applying stiffly whipped egg whites to the burned skin. Leave to dry then wash off gently with lukewarm chamomile tea.
- Stimulate Skin Repair: Use poultice made from winter squash or pumpkin fruit pulp for burns. Also try using pumpkin seed oil to heal burns, chapped skin and wounds.
- Treat and Sooth Minor Burns: Lavender essential oil can be useful for minor burns and sunburns. Essential oils are not true oils. Do not apply true oils, such as olive, almond, or vegetable oils to burned skin until the burn has fully resolved.
- Anti-irritating and Soothing Gel: Place raw potatoes slice on a burn to provide instant relief. This also helps to stop skin irritation while healing.
- Reduce Swelling: Linseed / flax seed also finds use when applied locally to the skin as a poultice. Put warm soaked seed in gauze or muslin and hold or bind in place on burns.
- Ideal Remedy for Sunburn: Rose essential oil has antibacterial, anti fungal and antiviral properties, making it ideal to topically treat a host of ailments including burns. Rose contains high amounts of vitamin C, a powerful antioxidant. This important vitamin can help protect skin cells from damage and can help prevent sunburn. You can get rosewater in any convenient store.
- Instant Relief: Same as that of potato, use onion directly on the skin for instant relief.
- Homemade Simple Solution: Combine 30g. of oats and 175 ml of water in a microwave-safe bowl. Microwave on high for 2 minutes or until cooked. Let cool. Cover the burned area with the cooled oat mixture. Wrap in clean muslin or gauze and keep it in place for 30 minutes to an hour. Oatmeal is soothing to burned skin. The gooeyness comes from a polysaccharide (complex sugar) called beta-glucan. It helps protect and hold water in the skin. Other compounds called phenols have antioxidant and anti-inflammatory activity.
- Skin Cure with Aloe: Take 1 tablespoon Aloe Vera and 1/4 teaspoon each of the sandalwood and turmeric powder. Mix them together, and apply the paste topically. This will be soothing and healing.
- Prevent Infection: Apply honey directly to a burn to facilitate healing and to help prevent infection.
- DIY Home Remedy: Sliced tomatoes placed onto the burned area will soothe and heal the damaged skin. Hold the tomato in place for at least 10-15 minutes.
What are Burns and Scalds?
Most anyone who spends much time in the kitchen or out in the sun has experienced a burn. A burn is an injury to the tissue of the body caused by heat, chemicals, electricity, hot liquids, fire or radiation. Have you ever burned yourself? With the oven, with the curling iron, or with the sun rays – ultraviolet light? It hurts, and it’s even worse when the skin blisters. Most of our mothers have told us that running the burn under cold water immediately helps to soothe the burn and prevent it from getting worse. Always cool a burn by letting cool water run over it until the pain has stopped.
Burns Home Remedies to Avoid
Try to avoid applying anything to the burn until it is cooled and you can see the extent of the damage. Many people believe the best thing you can do for a burn is to put something fatty or greasy on it, such as butter. But this is not true. Once the injury has occurred, it can take twenty-four to forty-eight hours for the burn to stop progressing.
Types and Levels of Burns
There are three levels of burns. First degree only hurts the outer layer of skin, like a sunburn. It causes redness and pain, and, after a couple of days, peeling skin. Second degree burns extend into the dermis, the bottom layer of skin. It will develop blisters indicating the burn has penetrated deeper into the skin and is more painful. The worst type of burn is a third-degree burn also called full-thickness burns, destroy the skin and damage underlying tissues. Because nerves are damaged, the area may be numb. Other signs include white or charred skin, which is also a medical emergency. For serious burns, particularly over a larger area of the body, a person needs hospitalization, plasma, and intensive care. Here are some common household burns, such as from inadvertently touching an iron, a skillet, or a cigarette, steam burn.
Tips to Heal Burn Quickly
- Once a burn has cooled down and begins to heal, cover it with an herbal salve to help reduce dryness and promote healing. Don’t apply it too soon because if the burn is still warm, the salve will lock in heat and could increase damage to the skin.
- It is important not to apply a bandage to cover the burn. Keep it open to the air because if you apply a bandage, the body’s heat may affect the burn adversely.