If you burn your skin from at-home waxing, learn from my mistakes.

Here’s what you should do to prevent permanent skin damage from a wax burn.

to figure out what works and what doesn’t.

a person sitting on the floor of a bathroom and using an at-home waxing strip on their leg

Photo: Piotr Marcinski/EyeEm/Getty

Take, for instance, the time I tried using an at-home hair-removal kit and suffered second-degree burns fromwaxing.

This created a hard disk, which misled me to believe the entire pot was still solid.

And thus, my wax burn was born.

two photos showing second-degree burn from waxing, the day after the wax burn took place

My second-degree burn from waxing, one day after the accident.Molly Ritterbeck

Ouch would be an understatement.

Turns out, I’m not the only one who’s gotten a pretty nasty-looking second-degree wax burn.

Here’s how I got my skin back in tip-top shape.

two images showing a second-degree wax burn after one month of healing

The progress one month after my #hairremovalfail.Molly Ritterbeck

How to Treat a Second-Degree Burn from Waxing

1.

Don’t suffer.In an attempt to act all cavalier about my injury, I told everyone I was fine.

But you don’t have to tough it out.

Thanks to itsanti-inflammatory properties, aspirin is a simple and effective treatment for burns, says Heslin.

Milk it.No, I don’t mean make your S.O.

Actual milk from a cow can help your wax burn.

Plus, if you take really good care of your burn (like me!)

you won’t have anyscarring.