Sunburn Relief: Does the Shave Gel Home Remedy Work?

Our kids got to party like it’s 1989 this summer, when somehow all the grownups around them forgot that sunscreen exists and let them play on the beach for hours unprotected. Whoopsie. (I was not one of these adults, in my defense. *cough* dadandthreegrandparents *cough* )

The good news is that this allowed us a chance to test out a life hack I’d read about multiple times. Lots of people swear that applying shave gel with aloe to a sunburn is a miracle cure. We figured it was worth a few bucks to find out.

We ran into a drug store and got whatever brand was cheapest but met the requirements. I wasn’t sure how much it really mattered that it was shave gel vs. cream, but I aimed for accuracy.

It was pretty fun to apply, and I think also to be the canvas of the shave gel art. I wasn’t sure whether we were supposed to rub it in like lotion or just leave it, so I mostly just left it after a minute of rubbing it in. Story’s skin was so thirsty we didn’t have to wait long to see what would happen. It soaked it all up like a sponge and didn’t leave a visible trace.

There was definitely some pain relief, plus the distraction of having lovely squishiness rubbed all over your back and shoulders isn’t a bad thing. We put in on again the second day as well.

The redness didn’t seem to fade much, although maybe it would have been even worse without...? But I remember many sleepless nights in my 80s childhood, when the pain from a sunburn was so irritating that I couldn’t get comfortable in any position. Story didn’t seem to have any of that, so I call it a win.

Several days later, the peeling process did still occur, so I still can’t vouch for this being a miracle cure. But hey, none of us had to lose any sleep, so I’m still going to keep this in mind for future burns. (Yeah, I know, I should keep sunscreen in mind first.)

The best part of this all, though, was taking a picture of Story’s peeling back and sending it to Mike and Sagan to make them guess what body part it was. Shoulder blades are funny.