How to Quickly Heal Skin Chafing: A Complete Guide

What is Chafing?

An irritation of the skin that’s caused by relentless friction. The irritation can become infected. 

Step 1: Disinfect

• Disinfect the chafed skin with one of the most potent natural antibiotics: manuka honey.
• Apply a thin layer of manuka honey to the affected area before bed, cover it with a bandage if necessary.

Step 2: Soothe & Heal

• Create a mixture of aloe vera gel and calendula oil. This mixture should help reduce redness, irritation, and help the skin heal.
• Apply the mixture 1-2 times per day. Cover with a bandage if you’re worried about it getting on your clothes.

Step 3: Prevent

• Don’t skip this step! This will prevent your chafed skin from continuously coming back.
• Reduce the friction with anti-chafing shorts. And when you’re going to sweat, wear dry-fit clothes.

Step 1:

Disinfect Your Chafed Skin

This step will help you eliminate any infection that may be present so your chafed skin can heal.

When your skin gets chafed, it can create tiny tears in the skin. These micro tears can allow harmful bacteria or other microbes to get in.

Some of these microbes can worsen the chafing, make the rash itchy, increase inflammation (making it redder), and result in an infection if it isn’t controlled.

But it’s best that you avoid traditional antibacterial soaps or ointments. They kill helpful bacteria and they can contain chemical irritants.

So what’s the solution?

Instead, you should consider manuka honey. It’s one of nature’s most powerful antibiotics.

It kills all sorts of infections, and numerous scientific studies confirm its tremendously effective.

This stuff works miracles.

That being said, here’s how you use manuka honey to clear out any infection that may be present…

Step 2:

Soothe and Heal Your Chafed Skin

Now that you know how to clear up any infections, it’s time to get relief!

Again, this step only uses natural products because chafing relief ointments can contain potentially harmful chemicals. This includes chemicals like cyclopentasiloxane or dimethicone which can irritate the skin even further (1).

Instead, the trick is to use a mixture of aloe vera gel and calendula oil.

Why?

Studies suggest that aloe vera is exceptionally effective at healing skin wounds. It also promotes the growth of new skin cells (2). And as a bonus, the aloe can help fight any infection that may be there as well.

The calendula oil will help with the redness and irritation which is caused by inflammation. Numerous studies have shown that calendula has potent anti-inflammatory properties (3).

Aloe and calendula combined provide a powerful 1-2 combo against skin chafing.

And that’s it!

It’s quite simple.

To recap, all you need to do to find fast relief from chafing is to apply the manuka honey every night and apply the DIY aloe balm throughout the day to provide relief.

If you're not a fan of putting aloe on your skin, you can try using hemp seed oil instead to provide intense moisturization.

But don’t stop here, there’s a big catch.

If you don’t follow the next step, your chafed skin will keep coming back.

So this next step is extremely important.

Step 3:

How to Prevent Chafing

Even if you manage to get rid of your chafing, you still need to prevent it from reoccurring.

Otherwise you will be constantly applying ointments and bandages without ever getting rid of the rash.

A waste of your money and time.

This step will help you eliminate what’s causing your chafing. That way your skin will have time to heal. And you will prevent chafing from happening down the road.

That being said, here are some prevention guidelines that you should follow to decrease the chances of getting chafed skin in the future...

Avoid The Rub

The most common cause of chafing is relentless friction.

In other words, constant rubbing or what some people call, the chub rub.

The best way to avoid this rubbing is to wear protective clothing.

If the chafing is on your thighs, you can purchase some anti-chafing shorts.

If you’re worried about fashion, ladies can wear bandelettes instead.

But if your chafing is somewhere else, put a bandage over it. Just make sure this bandage is changed every day.

If your chafing is near the armpit, try some of the other suggestions here since bandages are awkward for that region.

Stay Dry

You may notice that your chafing gets significantly worse when it’s hot out or you sweat.

This is because chafing is worsened by certain types of moisture.

There are many ways to ensure the area stays dry. But here are a few ideas to get you started:

• Don’t stay in wet or sweaty clothes. Remove them as soon as possible.
• If you are going to sweat, try dry-fit clothes. The material absorbs sweat and quickly dries off.
• Don’t apply skin lotion to areas that commonly chafe. Instead, use the aloe mixture when the area feels dry.

Ditch Your Traditional Soaps

Traditional soaps and body washes you find in the store often contain chemical irritants.

These irritants can cause or worsen your chafed skin.

Instead, invest in an organic bar soap that has no added toxic chemicals or artificial fragrances (3).

If you’re not sure where to get a safe and natural soap, you can try this one.

Avoid too Much Activity

While your chafed skin is healing, it’s important to avoid too much physical activity.

That’s because when you move, it can aggravate the chafed area.

You don’t want to make the problem worse as you try to heal it.

Of course, exercise is tremendously important for your health. So make sure you get back into it once your chafed skin heals.

Eat Right

There’s no diet that will cure chafing.

But your diet plays a huge role in your skin’s health.

If you consume processed or sugar-filled foods on the norm, your skin will be starved of nutrients.

This kind of diet also promotes the growth of a yeast called Candida albicans. This yeast can cause nasty skin rashes, sores, and destroy your gut health.

If you eat a balanced diet, on the other hand, your skin will be much happier.

This means your skin will be getting the nutrients it needs to regenerate, heal, and fight inflammation. All of which are important for avoiding chafing.

Other Home Remedies to Consider

If for some reason you can't use the home remedies for chafing mentioned in the guide, there are several other alternatives you can try.

I always suggest using the manuka honey for disinfection. You can, however, experiment with these natural remedies that can soothe chafing:

Lavender and Calendula Oil Soak

Try adding 10 drops of lavender essential oil and 10 drops of calendula essential oil to your bath water.

Lavender has antibacterial, anti-fungal, and anti-inflammatory properties (4, 5).

Paired with the therapeutic effects of calendula, this herbal bath could help ease your chafing.

You can get lavender essential oil here.

Turmeric Salve

Turmeric is well-known for its anti-inflammatory and antibacterial effects (5, 6).

But there’s countless substances out there that have these properties.

So why turmeric?

Studies suggest that the active compound in turmeric can speed up wound healing (7).

As you could imagine, this is really helpful for chafed skin.

If you want to try this method, you first need to pick up this organic turmeric root powder.

It’s important that you get the recommended product because a lot of turmeric powders out there contain suboptimal levels of curcumin. This means they won’t have the desired effect.

Instructions:

• Once you have the powder, make a paste by mixing one tsp. of water with three tsp. of turmeric powder.
• Spread over the chafed area and let it sit for 30-45 minutes. Cover it with a bandage if necessary.
• Be careful with the turmeric! It will literally stain everything it comes into contact with, including your skin.

Coconut Oil

Coconut oil is another home remedy that can help alleviate your chafing.

That’s because coconut oil can fight infection (including fungal infections) and soothe inflammation (8, 9).

Coconut oil also moisturizes the skin. Thanks to these three properties, coconut oil can provide significant relief for some people.

To use this remedy…

• Apply a small amount of coconut oil to a small fraction of your chafed skin. This will allow you to see if your skin negatively reacts to the coconut oil. Because in rare cases, some people do not tolerate coconut oil well.
• If your skin doesn’t worsen from the coconut oil, apply a thin layer of coconut oil to your chafed skin twice a day.
• That’s it!

Just be sure to only get organic extra virgin coconut oil.

Otherwise the product could be low quality and contain unwanted chemicals.

This is the coconut oil I use.

The Bottom Line

If you suffer from chafing, it can be a miserable experience.

It’s uncomfortable, painful, and it just looks plain awful if it’s an area that’s exposed.

Fortunately, the cure to chafing is quite easy. The process can be summed up into three steps:

• Step 1: Disinfect the chafed skin. Infection is common with chafed skin so it’s important to clear out any bacteria or fungi to allow the skin to heal. Manuka honey is, hands-down, the best natural way to clear out any skin infection.
• Step 2: Heal and soothe with a mixture of aloe vera gel and calendula oil.
• Step 3: Prevent the chafing from occurring. Consider dry-fit clothes to absorb any excess moisture and to protect your skin from constant friction which results in chafing.

By following these steps, it’s possible you can find relief in no time—without the use of any harmful chemicals.

But I also urge you to also consider this…

While this guide may help you find relief, it’s always important to look at the root cause of things.

In this case, it could be that you’re carrying a little extra weight.

Suffering from chafing may be your cue to get in shape.

I know it’s hard, but I have a mega-list of tips you can use to lose weight. Consider a few of the tips at a time, and you can drop pounds before you know it.

Other Names for Chafing & Confused Terms

Chub rub, inner thigh rash, armpit rash, nipple rash, chafed skin between legs, heat rash.