Use daily, indoors and outdoors, all year.
When outdoors, reapply every 1-2 hours.
Choose a minimum SPF of 30.
Choose “broad spectrum” for UVA protection, too.
Acne? Select “non-comedogenic.”
Sensitive skin? Avoid allergens.
Dark spots? Look for “visible and indoor light” protection.
Photo-sensitive? Use physical (mineral) sunscreens — zinc oxide and titanium dioxide.
SURVIVAL OR VANITY
If skin cancer doesn’t scare you, let looking like a mummy — the color of leather, wrinkly and wasted away — do it.
HOW DOES SUN EXPOSURE AGE YOU?
By causing a breakdown in collagen and elastin which causes wrinkles, sagging, dullness, and loss of elasticity. And by causing dark spots which can make the skin look older.
Lips are a skin cancer site. Choose a Lip Balm with SPF (ideally 30 or above).
Because you’re exposed to harmful rays daily (UVA and UVB outdoors; UVA and Visible Light indoors). Sun damage is cumulative — even the little sun that you get while crossing the street or through windows or windshields counts.
Visible light indoors can cause melasma and other hyperpigmentations (dark spots and blotches). And UVA does pass through windows.
To be safer. Slow, cumulative burns cause squamous and basal cell carcinoma. Severe burns from outdoor exposure cause melanoma. Apply a cream of at least SPF 30 about 30 minutes before you go outside to allow it to soak in. No matter what your sunscreen says, reapply every one to two hours and after sweating, swimming or toweling off because the skin is a dynamic layer and sunscreen ingredients can get rubbed or washed off.
Use titanium or zinc oxide (called mineral, physical or inorganic) sunscreens. Have a metal allergy? No problem: among the most allergenic metals are nickel, gold, manganese, palladium and cobalt. Metals with extremely low rates of allergic patch-test reactions are zinc, ferric chloride, and tin. Those that tend to show no allergic reactions include titanium, vitallium, and aluminum powder.
WORST TIMES TO BE OUTSIDE?
10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and just before sunset when reflections off the water can double your exposure.
HOW TO TAN HEALTHILY?
Bronzer or spray-ons. Just watch out for allergens. Or check out our bronzing virgin coconut oil trick on page 15 of our summer InSKIN magazine (or subscribe to our Tumblr blog so you don’t miss out on new beauty tutorials as they post!)