The saviors to my sunburn

As some of you may recall from this post, I don't tan easily. I have naturally extremely fair and freckle prone skin. I'm Polish (read: very very white). And yet, I love the beach. What's a girl to do?

Well, over the years and many many sunburns, I have developed a pretty solid burn triage that keeps me from peeling (most of the time) and minimizes pain. Apply and reapply aloe vera (straight from the plant if I'm at my mom's house, 100% fragrance free if not), and follow with lots of cocoa butter in between.

Imagine my surprise when I was shopping for aloe last night, thanks to a particularly vicious back burn I acquired from falling asleep on the beach (damn you, relaxing wave sounds!), and I discovered a new breed of aloe. New to me at least. I had just been thinking that aloe should come with some sort of painkiller infused into the gel (topical analgesic to be technical), and then bam! I spot aloe vera with lidocaine. While it only provides temporary numbing relief, if you reapply every couple hours, it really does the trick quite nicely. Now I'm just trying to decide if it is appropriate professional behavior to slather myself with aloe in the bathroom at work.

Fighting off the tanorexia

So it’s that time of year, when I am trying to maintain my resolution not to lay in the sun too much, and to faithfully reapply sunscreen when I do. But, I am being wooed by everyone else’s tans. Why is it that people just look so much prettier with a little hint of bronze around the edges and a few more freckles?

Then I went to the beach this past weekend. I reapplied, and it was foggy. I left congratulating myself on a job well done not getting burned AND spending a day on the water. About 3 hours later, my skin finally responded. My stomach was an angry shade of red, which 3 days later has just finally started to recede to pinkish/normal. I was disappointed in not even making it through a full month of summer without forgoing my fight against tanning, wrinkles, and cancer. What will power?

And now, to make it worse, everyone at work has been commenting on how fabulous I look with such a “healthy summer glow.” They tell me I look refreshed, my hair looks blonder, all in all I just seem more fabulous. (And it's true!!) I wish they would stop encouraging me! I mean was I really that sickly pale to begin with? Yep, in the photo above, I’d be the girl in the middle.