What to Do When You Burn Yourself With a Curling Iron

So today, like the genius I am, I was curling my hair with a clipless iron and accidentally grabbed the end heated to 370 degrees as opposed to the room temperature one. It took me a second or two, but I freaked out, dropped the iron on the floor and proceeded to scream "HOLY JESUS!" loud enough that I'm pretty sure everyone on my hall heard me. Once the momentary panic subsided, my hand was in quite a bit of pain. Here's what I recommend for anyone who finds themselves in this situation.

Image via the stylishhousewife.com

Step 1: Quickly go to a sink and run the burned area under cold water, or submerge burn in a bowl of ice water. If the burn is somewhere that cannot be easily be submerged, grab an ice pack or fill a plastic bag with ice, wrap in a paper towel or thin wash cloth and apply pressure to the burned area.

Step 2: Dry hand off and apply aloe vera to the burn. It's cooling and moisturizing, which may help prevent a blister.

Step 3: Every couple of hours after the burn, apply a healing balm like Surfer's Salve or The Honest Company's Healing Balm. This will help prevent blisters and continue soothing the burned area. If the burn begins to throb again (like mine did), apply an ice pack wrapped in a paper towel or thin washcloth until the pain subsides.

Step 4: The next day, apply a lotion with aloe to the burned area. This should sufficiently soothe and moisturize the area for the rest of the day. If your burn has started to blister, instead apply Neosporin and a band-aid to prevent infection.

Obviously, this should work for any burn you get, but since this is a beauty blog I figured it would be appropriate to do this article for beauty-related burns. I'm usually very careful about this sort of thing, I promise you this does not happen often, but when it does you need a good routine to get rid of the pain, fast. I hope this helps you next time you accidentally burn yourself (it happens to the best of us).