My face sunburns very easily and while I try to remember to wear a hat and put on sun screen before going outside sometimes I start gardening early in the morning and then stay out too long.

When I come in my face feels burnt and is red and stinging. Because I've noticed there are skin creams with Vitamin E added, on a whim one day when my face was really burning I stuck a pin in the end of a Vit. E gel type capsule and put the contents on my face.

In a few minutes my face stopped stinging and a burn never developed. I've been doing this all summer and thought I'd pass it along, but before doing so I checked it out on-line and sure enough it's recommended. I'm a genius! LOL But maybe all of you knew this already.

Anyway, here's what a couple of sites I clicked on said.:

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Vitamin E is being recommended by researchers for after-sun use, rather than pre-sun use, to soothe your skin and prevent a burn after exposure.

In fact, it's even effective if you apply it a half-day later, say researchers at the University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario, but it's better to do it as soon as possible. In studies using laboratory animals, the researchers found that vitamin E acetate, which converts to vitamin E in the body, prevented inflammation, skin sensitivity and skin damage when applied up to eight hours following UVB exposure.

"At this time, I wouldn't recommend that people apply vitamin E before sun exposure, because when vitamin E is exposed to ultraviolet light it produces a free radical, which in itself can be damaging," says John R. Trevithick, Ph.D., professor in the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Western Ontario. "But if you fall asleep in the sun and start to get a sunburn that you want to prevent from getting worse, vitamin E oil is a good idea."

Vitamin E can also work from the inside out. As an oral supplement, it can significantly reduce the inflammation and skin damage caused by sun exposure, says Karen E. Burke, M.D., Ph.D., a dermatologic surgeon and dermatologist in private practice in New York City. If you are inadvertently exposed to sun, take a lot of vitamin E: five capsules of 400 international units each for one to two days, says Dr. Burke.

For optimum protection, Dr. Burke recommends taking daily supplements of 400 international units of vitamin E in the form of d-alpha-tocopherol. It's okay to take oral vitamin E before you go out in the sun.

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As they say, I hope this helps. It seems to have helped me :-)