There’s not much I’ve been consistently listening to my mother about since my teen years, but her number-one piece of advice—“Always wear sunscreen”—has stuck with me for most of my life, as has her firm instruction to never, ever get on a motorcycle.

I inherited my extremely pale-tending, burn-prone skin from her, and while I had the requisite tween phase of slathering on weirdly croissant-scented, glitter-streaked self-tanner and hoping for the best, I’m now capable of finding a certain kind of pride in my post-sun pallor; sure, I’d love a beachside glow, but I’m satisfied every time I get home the same shade as I was when I left because it means my various SPFs, sunhats, full-coverage Mara Hoffman rash guards and hours spent inside my beach tent have done their job of limiting my exposure to the sun’s potentially harmful rays.

Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case a weekend ago, when I came home from a day spent at Point Dume aglow from an IRL dolphin sighting only to realize that I was also more literally aglow with a bright-red, face-and-chest-scalding sunburn that must have snuck its way in while I was calling everyone I know to report on the dolphins. (Guys, they were stunning!) Given that I’ve spent so much of my life paranoid-Googling skin cancer facts and avoiding the sun, it was something of a shock to me to realize that at 31, I don’t really know what to do about a sunburn; apparently, I’m not the only one susceptible to sun goofs, as Callum Turner proved recently on his vacation with new fiancee Dua Lipa, but how do we handle it?!? Turner and Lipa, a.k.a. the newly minted King and Queen of Vacation, are sunning themselves alongside Italy’s Amalfi Coast, where the UV index tends to be very high, so clearly he—and I—could both use some guidance.

For help, I turned to Dr. Anothy Rossi, double board-certified dermatologist and medical director for the preventative skin health program Joya Health, whose first piece of advice was simple and clear-cut: “If you get a sunburn and it’s not blistering, the first thing you should do is to keep the area clean and damp. Apply a thick layer of steroid-like over-the-counter cortisone cream mixed with thick emollient like Dr. Rossi Derm MD Night Synthesis (the peptide in the night synthesis targets the TRPV1 receptor to help block the inflammatory cascade), or pure aloe vera gel also works. Pro tip: Put the product in the refrigerator first to make it cool on application.”

If you’ve already applied all the creams and aloe vera gels you own and are still suffering, Dr. Rossi has further advice: “Take Vitamin D! Studies show that Vitamin D at an acute setting helps reverse sunburn cells. Follow with an anti-inflammatory like NSAID (Advil or Motrin) or aspirin to help reduce inflammation. Continue for the first 48-72 hours, and then remember to tell your derm during your next skin check about the sunburn. Stay hydrated as you lose water through your skin.” (I’m particularly bad at staying hydrated in the heat, so I’m going to put in my very own, most definitely not board-certified plug for Pedialyte Electrolyte Freezer Pops here; I feasted on almost a whole boxful while recovering from my sunburn, and I don’t know if they actually had healing properties, but they certainly helped my mood, and isn’t that half the battle.)