Each year in the United States alone, more than 2.4 million people suffer from burns caused by accidents within their homes. Most of those burns are not severe enough to warrant medical treatment but that does not mean they don’t have the power to cause pain, discomfort, and scarring. The good news is home remedies for burns can help reduce such problems for mild burns. However, finding the best home remedies for burns means paying special attention to the ingredients.

The Importance of Phenol

When you want to find one of these remedies, the ingredients are important. One of the best is a compound called liquefied phenol. This phenol is a popular choice found in products meant to fight infections from mild injuries, including cuts and burns, and to provide some pain relief by deadening the nerve endings in the affected area. And anyone who has burned their arm in the oven or had hot oil splash on their hand while cooking will appreciate that antiseptic quality.

Why Lubrication is Critical

If you want to prevent scarring and speed up healing, it is important to keep the burn area moist. When the skin becomes too dry, pain also increases and healing is slowed. However, you don’t want to use just any type of product on your injured skin. For example, an popular home remedy from the past was to rub butter on the burn. Today, we know that such a treatment can actually lead to an increased risk of infection.

Better lubricant ingredients would include cottonseed oil, paraffin, and petrolatum. When combined with a powerful disinfectant like the liquefied phenol mentioned above, these ingredients can help keep the area moist while also reducing the risk of infection and keeping the pain at bay.

Don’t Wait for Burns to Occur

Burns are not planned but burn treatments should be. When you’re in pain from one of these accidents, you aren’t going to feel like hunting down a treatment that includes these ingredients. Instead, you need to have the product on hand so you can apply it as part of your initial first aid.

Wash the burn area in cool water, dry completely, and apply a salve or ointment that includes some or all of the ingredients listed above to the area. Then wrap the burn in sterile dressings further prevent infection. By taking these actions and using the best home remedies for burns you’ll start to notice healing and an end to the discomfort much faster.