13 Best After-Sun Lotions to Soothe and Hydrate Your Skin (Tested and Reviewed 2024)
We've been obsessed with Burt's Bees After-Sun Soother for *years*.
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Hot take: Beauty editors get sunburns, too. Try as we might to religiously load up on sunscreen, even those of us who spend our days researching the best sunscreens and interviewing derms about the dangers of excess sun exposure make mistakes. (I'll admit that just last weekend, I sipped a few too many hard seltzers while soaking up the Miami sun and somehow skipped putting body SPF on half my left arm. Whoopsie!) But, lucky for Cosmo readers like yourself, these misadventures make us experts in after-sun lotions, too.
With summer fast approaching, now's the time to stock up on after-sun products that'll help relieve your sunburns and rehydrate your parched skin. So, I've pestered my beach-loving coworkers for product recs and rounded up 13 of the best after-sun lotions below. Plus, the Cosmo beauty team chatted with skin experts—dermatologists Purvisha Patel, MD, and Morgan Rabach, MD—for advice on how to properly treat sunburns and insight into what ingredients you should look for (and avoid) in after-sun lotions. More on that later, but for now, here’s a sneak peek of our picks:
Our top picks for the best after-sun lotions in 2024:
These gel moisturizers, body mists and after-sun face lotions are a far cry from the goopy aloe vera gel you might have slathered on as a kid. Instead of leaving you stinging and sticky, these sunburn soothers are packed with active ingredients that offer long-lasting hydration, prevent peeling, and even prolong your tan. But remember, sunburns are not something to play with. Even the best after-sun lotions can't undo the damage done by UV rays—they only mitigate the burning, itching, redness, and dry skin that occurs after the fact. You should 100% still be wearing SPF from h2t.
Sarah Maberry is a commerce writer for Hearst Magazines, where she covers fashion, beauty and pop culture. A seasoned trend forecaster and fashion historian, she analyzes viral products and trends on a deeper level. When she’s not writing for Cosmopolitan, ELLE, Harper’s BAZAAR, House Beautiful, Town & Country, Delish and other publications, she can be found roaming the Museum at FIT (her alma matter) or sewing her own couture while she binge-watches reality TV.
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Siena Gagliano is the associate editor at Cosmopolitan, where she primarily covers beauty, fashion, travel, and lifestyle. Wanna know how to get the best brows of your life? Gotchu. What about how to find the best fashion deals of the season, the softest sheets on the market, or exactly how to use retinol without irritating your skin? Check, check, and check. Before joining Cosmopolitan, Siena was a writer at Bustle and several other media outlets. As her 2024 goal, she has vowed to find the best (extra) dirty martini NYC has to offer—and yes, that means ~attempting~ to try every cute cocktail spot in the city (hit her up with some recs, pls). Follow Siena on Instagram for a behind-the-scenes look at that magazine life.
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