I’m sure we can all agree that the sun is a wonderful thing. But that being said, the massive, glowing star has the potential to do serious damage to your skin—especially if your skin is left untreated. Wrinkles and age spots are just two of the many negative marks that the sun can leave on your skin even after it sets. And, unfortunately, your face and décolleté are oftentimes the first places this damage begins to show.

You may be considering fillers, laser treatment, and other invasive, costly, and often painful procedures to combat the damage that’s left behind. But before making any major decisions, we want you to know that there are a number of simple and natural remedies for sun damaged skin.

What Causes Sun Damaged Skin?

 

The sun emits harmful ultraviolet light—the main culprit in sunburn. While laying out in the sun and building a tan is quite relaxing, over time, exposure to ultraviolet rays can lead to multiple problem areas, adding years to your look. In fact, research suggests that UV rays amount to 80 percent of the reason skin ages.

What Are The Results Of Sun Damaged Skin?

1. Wrinkles

By the time sunburn forms, most of the damage is already done to your skin. UV rays break down collagen and elastin, two proteins that keep skin smooth. Overexposure also damages skin cell DNA, leading to physical changes like wrinkles over time.

2. Sun Spots

Your skin cells produce a chemical called melanin to protect itself against the harmful effects of the sun. Ironically, though, too much sun can cause melanin to ‘clump’ together, resulting in flat brown or black splotches known as sun (or age) spots.

3. Dry Skin

It makes perfect sense: the sun deprives your skin of natural moisture and hydration. Sun overexposure can leave skin parched and looking ashy, flaky, and rough.

4. Actinic Keratosis

Sun overexposure can lead to the formation of dry, scaly, and crusty patches known as Actinic Keratosis (AK). When left untreated, AK can turn much serious than a spell of dry skin—nearly 10 percent of cases result in skin cancer.

Preventing Sun Damage

First and foremost, prevention is the best weapon. If the below items are not already in your beach bag, stock up on them now:

• Sunscreen with an SPF of 15 or higher
• Wide-brimmed hats
• Summer scarves
• Sunglasses 

Proper moisturization and exfoliation also help, so invest in a loofah and quality lotion. Furthermore, remember to stay hydrated and to visit a dermatologist annually (at least). Remember, these guidelines aren’t only applicable when the sun is shining bright. UV rays can reach your skin and cause sunburn even during overcast weather.

Best Remedies For Sun Damaged Skin

Sometimes, all of the prevention in the world can’t stop sun damage from happening. In those cases, it’s important to know some natural and proven-effective remedies for treating sun-damaged skin. Below we’ll reveal six of the best remedies for sun damaged skin.

1. SiO Beauty

SiO Beauty patches provide an affordable, luxurious, and simple way to seriously revitalize your skin’s youth and radiance. Here at SiO Beauty, all of our products are made from medical-grade silicone and are clinically proven to produce 100 percent real results on real women.

Why? We’ve been in your shoes, and we know how you feel! Just like you, we love baking in the sun on a hot summer day. We enjoy trips to the beach with our family and friends. We love spending time outdoors. And, sometimes, despite our best efforts, we forget our sunscreen at home. In fact, before SiO Beauty, our founder Gigi was wearing summer scarves for all the wrong reasons. Not necessarily to protect her skin from the sun, but to hide the deepening wrinkles and damage already done.

Our medical-grade silicone patches are contoured to fit and flex like a second skin on every woman. They create a surface on your skin that gently compresses and also hyper-hydrates the areas that are wrinkled and damaged by the sun.

Furthermore, SiO Beauty’s 24-Hour System begins healing the sun-ravaged skin of your décolleté, the sun-sensitive area surrounding your neck, chest, and collarbone, in as little as 24 hours.

The entire process takes just three easy steps:

1. Cleanse your décolleté with the SiO cleansing discs to begin the repair process.
2. Apply and wear the SiO SkinPad overnight to super-charge its healing effects. 
3. Apply the SiO décolleté serum to further hydrate, smooth, and brighten.

The groundbreaking products offered by the experts at SiO Beauty offer a remedy for reversing harmful and unsightly sun damage without invasive needles, fillers, or the use of potentially harmful chemicals. As a bonus, SiO helps you achieve beautiful, younger looking skin without even leaving your home!

2. Apple Cider Vinegar & Onion Juice

It sounds like a crazy combination, and one that we may not have considered otherwise, but apple cider vinegar and onion juice, mixed together and applied to the skin, have natural, skin-lightening properties.

These can help reduce the formation of those dark, discolored sun/age spots on the face and décolleté. Although you may smell a little funky, the results will be worth it. To get started:

1. Chop, blend, or process an onion into the smallest bits possible
2. Separate the solid onion from the juice by letting it drip through a strainer or cheesecloth. (Thankfully, it only takes a ½ cup of onion juice to make this remedy effective.)
3. Mix the onion juice with an equal amount of apple cider vinegar
4. Using a cotton swab, apply a small amount to the sun-damaged area and leave on for 30 minutes

Used as a skin remedy once each day, you can expect to see skin-lightening results in two or three weeks. Additionally, to speed up the process, you may want to try mixing one tablespoon of apple cider vinegar into a mug full of water (hot or cold) and drinking the mixture twice daily for one month.

The drink will not only improve your age spots but will provide a healthy, young glow and boost natural energy levels. Talk about looking and feeling younger!

3. Vitamin C

Vitamin C packs a powerful one-two-three punch.

• One: it helps revitalize skin by encouraging new, healthy cell growth.
• Two: it combats premature skin aging by fighting free radicals that can damage collagen.
• Three: it inhibits the enzyme tyrosinase, which plays a role in the production of the pigment melanin that is responsible for making your skin darken.

UV exposure increases the presence of the aforementioned free radicals, which interfere with collagen and put the aging process on hyperdrive. Vitamin C works as an antioxidant in protecting against this damage.

Vitamin C is also the most common antioxidant found naturally within our bodies—but the sun and its exposure can totally cap its presence.

To help fight skin discoloration and rejuvenate damaged skin, use a serum or lotion that contains vitamin C. In addition, be sure to consume at least one food high in vitamin C (such as oranges, kale or kiwi) every day.

4. Coconut Oil

Coconut oil is commonly referred to as a miracle product, and for good reason! It’s packed with fatty acids and vitamin E. Those fatty acids work to nourish the skin as a natural moisturizer, and the vitamin E acts as a natural antioxidant that can help reduce inflammation caused by UVA and UVB rays.

Coconut oil is typically a solid at room temperature, but it doesn’t take much heat to change it to a liquid and use it as a hyper-hydrating (and wonderfully-smelling) moisturizer. In fact, your body heat alone is often enough to cause the transformation. If you find that you need help to melt the coconut oil, a few seconds in a microwave or on the stovetop should get the job done.

Just remember, like most of these remedies, a little goes a long way -- so use coconut oil sparingly and allow the skin to soak it up.

Using a spoon or your fingers, simply extract a small amount of coconut oil from the container and, once melted, massage it into sun damaged areas of the skin (or allover, if you prefer). For best results, apply a small amount of coconut oil up to three times per day.

With this regimen, you can expect to see a change in both your skin tone and complexion within just a few days.

4. Lemon Juice

When life gives you lemons, make a skin-healing remedy!

Lemon juice is an excellent all-natural remedy for sun damage on your face, neck, and chest. How? The juice of a lemon contains citric acid (an alpha-hydroxy acid) that encourages cell production and rejuvenation in the skin.

With lemon juice, a little a cotton-swab-full goes a long way in promoting natural cell healing, production, and replacement. Dab the juice onto affected skin areas and leave it on for 30 minutes. When time’s up, simply wash it off with warm water and rehydrate your skin by applying a moisturizer.

When using lemon juice to repair sun-damaged skin, watch out for burning or irritation after application. This can be a sign that you’re overdoing it. And remember to leave the juice on for no longer than 30 minutes, as prolonged exposure can actually damage your skin.

If you do feel burning or irritation, stop using lemon juice and let your skin heal.

6. Baking Soda

When it comes to reversing sun damage, baking soda can be applied to the epidermis and used to break down harmful proteins and acids. Baking soda will also normalize your skin and help balance pH levels.

Your skin has a thin, protective layer on the epidermis that is referred to as the acid mantle. This acid mantle is made up of sebum (oily and fatty acids) mixed with lactic and amino acids from sweat, creating your skin’s pH. An ideal pH is slightly acidic, about 5.5 on the pH scale.

Even more, baking soda can reduce itching and inflammation brought on by sunburn and poisoning and helps keep moisture in your skin—where it belongs!

There are many ways you can use baking soda with sun-damaged skin, but two of the simplest remedies require nothing more than baking soda and water.

Add Baking Soda To Your Bath

1. Mix one cup of baking soda in a bathtub full of lukewarm water
2. Soak for 20 to 30 minutes
3. As you soak, the baking soda will work to smooth and repair your sun-damaged skin
4. Do not rinse it off; instead, allow your body to air dry

Make A Baking Soda Paste

If you don’t want to soak in a bath or you’re pressed for time, you can make a paste.

1. Mix two tablespoons of baking soda with two tablespoons of warm water
2. Apply the paste to the sun-damaged area and let sit for five to 10 minutes
3. Remove the paste by washing with cool water
4. Repeat the process at least once every other day for best results

Using Remedies For Sun Damaged Skin

Treating sun-damaged skin doesn’t have to be a losing battle—even if you already show signs of built-up damage. The experts at SiO Beauty want to make the process simple, painless, and effective for you. That’s why we’ve worked day and night to formulate top-of-the-line, skin repairing and perfecting products using the same silicon that has been used and trusted by doctors, surgeons, and hospitals for more than three decades.

We’ve taken every precaution to ensure that SiO is safe. After all, you may have already spent a little too much time in the not-so-safe sun. We’re here to help reduce the damage and revitalize youthful, radiant, and supple skin. Our products offer exceptionally safe and effective means to heal and normalize burned, wrinkled, and seemingly worn-out damage.

An ounce of prevention in the form of sunscreen, hats, wraps, and other coverings goes a long way toward preventing the discolorations and wrinkles that come with sun exposure. But sometimes, you need an extra beauty remedy or two.

Don’t assume you have to turn to the needle, artificial fillers, or painful laser treatment. To help repair already sun-damaged skin, try the suggested remedies above and be sure to use SiO Beauty’s skin patches and complete 24-Hour System for accelerated results.

Beautiful skin is achievable, despite the damage. Now go out and get it!