Taking care of your skin may seem like a no-brainer. You have your moisturizers, you have your cleansers, and are ready to attack any dryness or oiliness that comes your way. Sunburn? You have that covered to, putting it on twenty minutes before you venture outside into the sunlight. Your makeup is set so it will not clog up your pores or cause your skin to dry out. You are ready for anything.

Or are you?

Most of the time, people do not think much along the lines of things that make their skin itchy until it happens. Sure, a mosquito bite is bound to happen once and a while, but what if you happen to feel itchy for some other reason? What is going on?

In one case, you may have bumped into poison ivy or poison sumac. Poison ivy is very common and can sometimes be hard to identify mostly because even if you hear it has three leaves, there are a lot of other plants that have three leaves sprouting from their stems.

You can still look up plenty of pictures online of poison ivy and poison sumac in order to better understand what they look like so you can avoid it in the future. But what if you bump into it anyway? Or you may not touch it at all; just by touching objects with poison ivy oil on them, clothing or shoes that have touched the plant, pets that have come into contact with it, or by simply burning the plant you can get the oil on you from smoke. Most people are allergic to the effects of the oil, leaving you with an itchy, red rash.

After all your hard work to keep your skin clean and healthy, you have gone and gotten it irritated and find yourself scratching away, which will not help. So what do you do?

First of all, stop scratching! Scratching may feel like you are alleviating yourself of the itch, but you are only going to make it worse. The lack of benefits from scratching goes beyond just poison ivy, something you should always keep in mind the next time you find yourself scraping away at your skin.

Bacteria under your fingernails can get into any breaks or blisters in your skin and cause infections. Also, by scratching a spot with the oil before it has bonded to your skin, you can then transfer the oil to another part via scratching, leaving you with more itchy spots than you started with. However, if the oil has already bonded, it will not spread, but you should avoid scratching in any case.

Next, as soon as you notice symptoms of poison ivy (or poison oak or sumac), start washing! Use plain, cool water to start with so you can do your best to flush away the oil. If you have a product that contains mineral oil, you can try using it on the area because it can help remove the poison ivy oils from your skin. Always be sure to wash anything you may have also come into contact with since touching the plant, such as clothing and tools.

If washing fails to fully remove the oils or you have a rash develop anyway, you can seek out over-the-counter medications that are meant to help stop itching such as hydrocortisone cream, oatmeal baths, calamine lotion, and antihistamine pills. They will not make the rash disappear overnight, but can reduce irritation and itching. As the days go by, if you have taken good care of the rash, it should go away.

Living in an area with little to no poison ivy, oak, or sumac means you will probably be free and clear of any worries, but you should always keep in mind that there are plenty of external factors out there that can affect your skin in adverse ways. By remaining careful, vigilant, and understanding to your skin needs, you will be free of more irritations than just poisonous plants.