Natural First Aid for Burns: Chinese Herbal Burn Cream (Ching Wan Hung)
Ching Wan Hung is a famous Chinese herbal topical burn cream that is a must-have for every home first-aid kit. Use it one time and you'll be hooked. It is highly effective for 1st and 2nd degree burns, promoting rapid skin healing, significantly reducing pain, and even help prevent scarring. In Western medicine first aid, there is nothing like it for your home self care of minor burns. A Chinese Burn Cream like Ching Wan Hung is fast to soothe burns, has anti-bacterial properties, AND promotes quicker recovery. It can be used for other common first aid conditions other than burns. It is safe for almost anyone (including babies and children). On top of all that, it is inexpensive, easily availble online. For all these reasons, a natural herbal burn cream like Ching Wan Hung deserves a place not only in your first aid supplies but also in easily accessible spots like your kitchen, where minor burns are most likely to happen.
It’s safe, natural, and highly effective—ideal for a wide range of minor skin injuries! What's not to love?
How Can Burn Cream Help?
- Fast Relief from Burns: The herbal formula (curated combination of herbs) in Ching Wan Hung quickly cools and soothes burns, stopping pain almost immediately.
- Heals Skin Quickly: Its herbal ingredients not only reduce pain and redness but also help regenerate damaged skin, healing blisters in warp speed, and often preventing scars in the process.
- Effective Where Other Treatments Fall Short: Western first aid treatments may help protect the skin and prevent infection. Chinese Burn Creams excel at infection prevention AND excels at healing skin quickly and scar prevention, making it a standout in burn care. Use it one time and you'll wonder how you ever lived without it.
Why does it small like sesame seed oil?
Among its active ingredients is sesame seed oil, which in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) has medicinal qualities. Nothing in Chinese Herbology is not thought through! Sesame seed oil is known to help clear Heat you can feel on the skin, particularly Heat associated with inflammation or redness. (Heat is a Chinese diagnostic term, but also literally applies to the redness and warmth of burns on the skin.) Sesame seed oil is cooling in nature, making it especially useful for burns, rashes, or skin irritations where excess Heat is present. In addition, sesame oil also promotes skin regeneration, accelerating healing for burns, wounds, and ulcers. Its emollient properties protect the skin barrier and help retain moisture, which is crucial for fast and effective healing.
Key Herbal Ingredients
Ching Wan Hung’s powerful healing qualities come from a synergistic combination of traditional Chinese herbs and sesame seed oil. Some of the powerful herbs used in many versions, including Ching Wan Hung, are:
- Zi Cao (紫草), Lithospermum or Arnebia root: Strongly clears hot inflammation, soothes burns, promotes blood circulation to promote faster healing, aids detoxification, regenerates the skin, hydrates and reduces scarring.
- Dang Gui (Angelica Root): Topically, this commonly used herb for internal medicine helps regenerate the skin and promotes blood circulation to the damaged area.
- Di Yu (Sanguisorba): Cools the skin, clears heat, and helps wounds heal faster.
- Huang Qin (Scutellaria): Topically, this common herb reduces inflammation and draws out toxins from burned skin.
- Mian Ma Guan Zhong (Dryopteris): Prevents infections and keeps the skin clean as it heals.
- Zhi Zi (Gardenia): Cools the skin and reduces swelling, helping it recover more quickly.
Very Important: Understanding Different Degrees of Burns
In the modern era in the United States, Chinese Herbal Burn Creams are for 1st and 2nd Degree Burns ONLY. Natural burn creams are NOT for 3rd Degree Burns. 3rd degree burns are very dangerous. You should seek modern Emergency Room level medical care for 3rd degree burns.
Burns are classified by how many layers of the skin are affected. There are 3 layers to your skin: the epidermis (surface, literally "over dermis"), the dermis (middle layer), and hypodermis (the deepest layer, literally "under dermis"). Its when the hypodermis - the deep layer where some crucial things take place, that you need to consult emergency medicine.
Luckily, most burns are NOT 3rd degree. With alittle education on different burn levels, it is easy to see differences between types of burns. What follows is the different appearance of each type of burn, when natural burn cream is helpful and how, and when NOT to use burn cream and seek emergency medical care. You got this!
1st Degree Burns - Burn Cream is great to use!
- Appearance: Skin is red and may feel warm or painful, but there are no blisters. Examples include mild sunburn or touching a hot surface for a brief moment.
- Healing: Using burn cream like Ching Wan Hung can speed healing incredibly fast for these minor burns, often preventing discomfort at all. For those very minor kitchen burns, minor sunburns, and the like, sometimes you'll forget the next day you even burned yourself.
2nd Degree Burns - Burn Cream is great to use!
- Appearance: Skin is red, blisters form, and the pain is more intense. This occurs when the burn affects both the outer layer (epidermis) and the second layer (dermis) (hence, 2nd degree burn). Common causes include touching a hot pan or spilling boiling water.
- Healing: Without burn cream, these burns take a week to several weeks to heal and may leave scars. But consistent use (several times a day) of Ching Wan Hung can cut healing time in half. If applied quickly enough after the burn occurs (such as when you accidentally touch a hot stove), you might prevent the formation of blisters altogether. This is also true for sunburns, where prompt application may stop the burn from worsening overnight.
3rd Degree Burns - Medical Emergency. Go to the Emergency Room. Do NOT use burn cream.
- Appearance: Skin appears charred, leathery, or white, and the burn has penetrated through all 3 layers of the skin (hence, 3rd degree burn). No pain may be felt in the center of the burn due to nerve damage.
- Action: A medical emergency. You must seek emergency medical care. A great mantra in health: "When in doubt, check it out!"
- After You Have Seen Emergency Care. If you have a significant 3rd degree burn treated with Western medicine, you may also be able to simultaneous treat with Chinese Herbs as Tea to drink. Consulting an experienced, licensed Chinese herbalist may be able to help healing from the inside out. Any herbal therapy would be as a supplement the (more important, in this serious scenario) prescribed medical treatments of Western medicine. But herbal teas can help, so find yourself an experienced Chinese herbalist to find out more.
Other First-Aid Applications of Burn Cream
While the cream is primarily designed for burns, it’s also a versatile cream for other types of skin injuries because of the overlap in medical properties of the herbal ingredients. The suggestions below may be where alcohol-based herbal first aid products like Evil Bone Water would sting or irritate the skin, such as:
- Scrapes and scratches – especially when the skin is open at the surface (it is not appropriate for deeper wounds).
- Blisters, whether from new shoes or repetitive use of tools. Apply and put band-aid over for extra-strength or for areas that will wash or rub off too easily. Burn cream's herbal ingredients generate skin, so using for contact blisters of most kinds works extremely well.
- Travel First Aid - Don't forget to pack! Headed camping where you'll be sitting around a fire and using open flames to cook? Headed off on a sun-filled lake, beach, or hiking vacation? Don't forget to pack a Burn Cream! It's a lifesaver that can save your comfort and sanity on a vacation.
- Sunburns (Don't forget, that's an actual burning of the skin!), where the cooling and skin-regenerating effects can stop pain, reduce worsening overnight, prevent or reduce blisters, prevent or reduce peeling, and help return to normal skin more quickly. You can dilute the cream with a carrier oil (like avocado, olive, or any kitchen oil) for easier application over large areas of skin.
Common Home Scenarios
- Cooking mishap: Accidentally touched the stove or oven? Apply Ching Wan Hung burn cream immediately to prevent the burn from worsening.
- Sunburn: Your child comes home with painful red skin after a day at the beach. Dilute the cream with a kitchen oil like avocado or olive oil to spread it easily and cool the burn.
- New shoes: Got a painful blister from walking in new shoes? Apply the cream to soothe the irritation and speed up healing.
- Gardening injury: Blisters from using tools or repetitive hand movements are common. Ching Wan Hung provides instant relief and promotes faster recovery.
- Scrapes on kids: Kids hate the sting of alcohol on an open scrape, so something like the (amazing!) herbal Evil Bone Water, might make an already unhappy kid even unhappier. Use burn cream initially until the skin closes (and once it does, follow up with Evil Bone Water, for full healing of the scrape/bruise). Burn cream has antibiotic properties, is soothing, smells like sesame seeds (kids generally like that), and does not sting to apply because it is oil based.
With a Chineser Burn Cream like Ching Wan Hung, you can heal minor burns and other skin injuries quickly and naturally, making it a must-have for your home health care first aid kit. The more empowered you are in your healthcare, the better!
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Last Tip: Keep it Handy – Keep in Your Kitchen!
Most minor burns happen in the kitchen, whether from touching a hot pan or splattering oil. Keep Ching Wan Hung easily accessible in your kitchen, so you can apply it right away to minor burns. This can also help easily find it when you need it. This quick action can significantly reduce the frustration of trying to locate something you need immediatly, but is in anotehr part of the house. Keep it where it's quick to find, where the action in your home happens: The Kitchen!
Kim Drolet
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