Mum's warning after kids suffer severe sunburn through t-shirts and SPF 50 suncream on Gran Canaria holiday

14.06.2022 - 11:49 / manchestereveningnews.co.uk

A mum has issued a warning to parents after her two children suffered severe sunburn on holiday - despite wearing factor 50 suncream and t-shirts. Carlien Pretorius says the 'agonising' ordeal ruined the family's two-week trip to Gran Canaria.

The mum-of-two, from Newport, Wales, applied a suncream she had bought from a shop on the island labelled "parafarmacia", but she soon noticed Joshua, 11, and Luke, nine, had started to burn, WalesOnline reports. “The boys burnt from just being in the swimming pool despite having full 50+ sunscreen on and T-shirts," Carlien said.

"The sun cream I bought was from the pharmacy. Shocking really. I believe there must be something wrong with it, maybe it’s out of date, or it could be the wrong sun cream for their ages. Both of them were in a lot of pain and I had to give them Calpol regularly which I thankfully had brought with me from the UK. Joshua especially was in absolute agony."

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Carlien said the burns became so bad that she took her sons back to the same shop she bought the cream from and they gave her an ointment to put on the skin. In total, the mum says she spent €110. However, the cream she was given “made it way worse" and the family eventually decided to go to a public doctor’s surgery for some free advice.

Carlien said she blames the ordeal on the shop which sold her the sun cream, as well as global warming, which she believes made the island “much hotter than it was when we came here eight years ago”. She said she also blames herself for “not being able to protect my kids from this horrible thing happening to them”.

“I was really worried," Carlien admitted.