photo by beautiful-skies.tumblr.com
It is hot outside. You are bathing in the sun. The sun is burning on streets and on your skin. Everyone knows it: you have to apply sunscreen before ring out in the sun, but hoe does sunscreen really works, which sunscreen should I use and when should I reapply it. If you are interested in this topic then keep on reading.
How does sunscreen work?
Sunscreen protects your skin from dangerous UV radiation which cause skin cancer, wrinkles and any other skin damages by consisting of different chemical ingredients. As I am not that skilled in answering this question in detail, Everyday Mysteries did a fantastic job in this:
"Sunscreen works by combining organic and inorganic active ingredients. Inorganic ingredients like zinc oxide or titanium oxide reflect or scatter ultraviolet (UV) radiation. Organic ingredients like octyl methoxycinnamate (OMC) or oxybenzone absorb UV radiation, dissipating it as heat. Some sunscreens protect us from the two types of damaging UV radiation: UV-A and UV-B. Both UV-A and UV-B cause sunburns and damaging effects such as skin cancer."
answered by Everyday Mysteries
Which sunscreen should I use?
Recently a serious foundation that is testing product came out that cheap sunscreens from the drugstore do protect the skin best. Expensive luxury brands or even more expensive sunscreens from the drugstore didn't had the right ratio of UVA and UVB factor. Some also claimed to have another SPF than they actually had. So here is cheap better than expensive!
photo by pinterest
Which SPF should I use?
The SPF is in proportion to the intensity of sunrays, so it depends in which region you live. If you live approx. in the 50° latitude then it's fine to use a SPF of 15 in winter and 30 in the summer. Obviously, people in Africa or even in California have to use a higher SPF. However, the choice of SPF also depends on your skin type and your self-protection tim of the sun.
Skin Type 1 (very fair skin, red hair) - 5-10 min
Skin Type 2 (fair skin, blond) - 10-20 min
Skin Type 3 (slightly bronzed skin, dark blonde/brown hair) - 20-30 min
Skin Type 4 (dark, really tanned skin, brown/black hair) - 30-45 min
So this means that when you use a SPF of 30, your personal self-protection time of the sun is multi plicated by 30. So the sunscreen would protect my skin for 5-6 hours (I am skin type 2).
When to reapply sunscreen?
Some sunscreen claim with the banner: "Once a day". Well, totally ignore that because that is definitely not true. Your sunscreen protects your skin for a certain amout of time, as I have mentioned above. Once this time is exceeded, no sunscreen in the world can elongate the time. Thus, after a few hours you just have to go out of the sun, take a break and maybe after a little while you can go back to the sun. But remember, two hours in the sun are definitely enough for everyone.
I hope you found this helpful. Please let me know whether you like bathing in the sun?
Wish you a wonderful day!
Lots of love,
