Yellow Mustard for Burns

First aid for sunburn, hot food and beverage burns, hot plate or oven burns, scalding water and more.

Yellow Mustard for Burns

by Cheryl Carroll
June 5, 2006

At work one day, I accidently pulled out the coffee filter basket while the coffee was brewing. This was an industrial sized basket filled with scalding water and coffee grounds. My arm was burned from the elbow down.

I rushed to a faucet and placed my arm under cold running water. I wouldn't pull it out for anyone. Everyone had their ideas of what to do, but one girl was absolutely passionate about her remedy. She assured me that yellow mustard would completely take away the pain and keep my arm from blistering.

Even though she was barely more than a teenager and quite a bit younger than anyone else offering advice, I gave in to her. She was so eager to show me she knew what she was talking about.

When I pulled my arm away from the running water, she applied the mustard quickly and generously. I don't remember if she dried my arm first and I don't remember how much pain the mustard took away at first. I know it provided relief going on because it was cold.

She instructed me to leave it on until it dried. By the time it had dried and I washed it off, my arm was fine. No pain and no blistering.

Unfortunately, I was unable to convince the next person that burned herself in the same way. She followed the manager's advice and used the burn cream in the first aid kit. She suffered a lot of pain and her arm quickly filled with nasty blisters.

Over the years I've used mustard on a few other burns with excellent results.

When my oldest son was a teenager, he came home one day with a deep red sunburn. I covered him from head to toe with mustard. He joked about being a giant hotdog. The mustard drew out the heat so that he could sleep comfortably and by the next morning, the redness had all but completely disappeared.

I burned my finger once on a hot oven rack. As an experiment, I used mustard on half of the burn and left the other half untreated. The part I used the mustard on appeared to have never been burned, while the other half reddened, peeled, scabbed and scarred for a short time.

So how does the mustard work? The vinegar is said to be the useful ingredient. It's what draws out the heat. I don't know exactly how it draws out the heat, but I am sure that's what happens. After I apply it to a sunburn, the area treated is cool to the touch. This fact made me wonder if vinegar would also work on a fever. I was able to find a few places online that say it does. I'll try it one day and see what happens.

I attempted to use plain distilled white vinegar on sunburn once, but I didn't like it. I didn't know if it was being absorbed by the skin, if it was just running off, or if it was evaporating. Refrigerated yellow mustard is cool when applying and I believe it helps keep the vinegar in place so that a good amount is absorbed. Waiting for the mustard to dry also gives you a sense of how long to keep it on.

July 2006: We took a trip to South Padre Island, where my legs saw the sun for the first time in about twenty years. Thinking I would get a quick tan by burning first, followed by applying mustard, I went to the beach and laid in the sun until I was red.

This was probably the stupidest thing I have ever done.

For severe sunburn, yellow mustard does help. It takes away the burning pain of the sunburn and the pain of it being touched. I never had a problem, except when I would put the cold mustard on, or when I first got into my bath. It also helps prevent blistering. I had only one blister on my ankle, which I find totally amazing. What it didn't do was take away the redness or the swelling. The swelling was very painful for me and I couldn't find a way around that. I had to lie still a lot. Perhaps if I had put the mustard on sooner, but I don't know.

It took a very long time for the swelling to go down. Eventually, I did peel. I put the mustard on many times and would hate to think of what I would have gone through without it. My burn was so bad, I would have surely bubbled up all over, and the pain would have been out of this world.

If you have comments, questions, or would like to report a broken link, please send an email to Cheryl at byclc@live.com

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