First Aid: Holiday Essentials

Your first aid kit is full to the brim with bandages, dressings, disposable gloves, eye pads and more. But what should you take on holiday? Read on for a list of the more unconventional items you will benefit from taking away with you.

You’ve had a fantastic day walking the length of Paris; climbing the many steps of the Eiffel tower and traipsing around the Louvre Museum in search of the Mona Lisa, but now your feet are really starting to feel it.

If you’re planning on seeing a lot of tourist attractions while you’re away, make sure you take plasters and blister plasters, especially if you have purchased new shoes that often take a while to break in.

There’s nothing worse than waking up with Mosquito bites, no matter how often someone tells you not to scratch them, they are impossible to ignore. It makes your skin crawl just thinking about them!

Before you leave the hotel for the evening spray insect repellent to deter those nasty critters, we would also recommend packing some bite relief cream to get rid of the annoying itch and to reduce swelling.

Now for the most important item and an extension of the more traditional first aid kit supplies- Sunscreen. The lobster look will never be in fashion and it can really knock your confidence when you’re strutting your stuff in your swimwear and people are gawping at your luminous skin with a pained facial expression. But if that notion doesn’t bother you enough to smother yourself in factor 50 - that’s not all; severe sunburn can cause sunstroke, give you huge seeping blisters and potentially leave your face so swollen, that you may not be able to open your eyes.

The repercussions of neglecting to apply sunscreen can ultimately ruin your holiday, but there are also long-term effects of too much exposure to the sun.

Skin cancer is on the increase with research showing that more than 13,000 people a year develop malignant melanoma in the UK, compared with roughly 1,800 people in the mid-1970s.

UV rays are also responsible for 80% of skin ageing effects such as wrinkles. Unfortunately, there’s no such thing as the fountain of youth, so to keep your skin from showing the first signs of ageing by applying sunscreen and staying in the shade.

One final tactic to get this important message across; famous director Baz Luhrmann features in an uplifting and thought provoking song entitled  “Everybody’s Free (to Wear Sunscreen)” in which he gives lessons in life, the first being the importance of sunscreen! Give it a listen and let us know your thoughts over on Twitter.

To gather your first aid essentials together ready for your holidays head over to Imperative Supplies, your one-stop shop for all things first aid.