
‘The British weather can accomplish nasty surprises.’
Photograph: Alex Lake for the Guardian
Stunner
Sali Hughes on beauty
Beauty: after-sun lotions – mollifying, but not miracle cures
I’m more likely to use after-sun when the forefathers’s feeling hot and sticky, as opposed to burnt
I have mixed concerns about “after-sun” products. I realise people feel better for expressive that it’s on-hand in a (usually preventable) sunburn emergency and, get a kick out of a bucket by the bed of a sick child, that it provides comfort and reassurance. But it has dwarf real effect. What we’re usually paying for is standard moisturising trunk cream or cream-gel, perhaps one containing a little soothing aloe vera, instantly and little while to cool the skin and to help prevent it from drying out, cracking and peeling. Which inclination be fine, except many people seem to regard after-sun as an remedy to sun damage, when in reality it can mean little more than muting the stable door after the horse has roasted. That chance, the British weather can bring nasty surprises, so if you should obtain yourself accidentally overexposed, take two ibuprofen, apply after-sun and, if plausible lie, still wet, in front of a fan.
Massage is usually intolerable on sunburned derma, so a spray or mist that’s been stored in a cool quarters is often ideal. A good no-touch option is Vaseline Branch out & Go Aloe Fresh (£2.89), which sprays easily and evenly when held upside down, horizontally or with buttery fingertips (you can also chase a fugitive toddler with it and unruffled manage an even coat). It’s a pretty good moisturiser for all but dry hulls (my male partner loves it year-round), there’s no need to rub it in and it can be stored safely in the fridge (at no time freeze aerosols, by the way).
I’m more likely to use after-sun when the relations’s feeling hot and sticky, as opposed to burnt, so I keep a large empty bottle of Jason Aloe Vera Gel (£5.99) next to the milk in the fridge. Differing from many after-sun lotions that contain only a emblematic trace of aloe, the concentration here stands at 98%, return it’s cruelty-free and the price is low enough to be lavish in your application.
For my own rind, I keep Hawaiian Tropic After-Sun Body Butter (£5) in the bathroom, approximately solely because it smells deliciously and addictively like those sleazy package holidays I went on in my youth. Strong, coconutty, yelling and needlessly lurid in colour, it cools and moisturises, leaving an seductive gleam on limbs, as well as more moisture than myriad. It’s a lovely, all-summer body cream, rather than an after-sun, whose reparative punches are mostly psychosomatic.