Pam, Did You Reapply Your Sunscreen? Read These Tips.

We all know that we should wear sun­screen and have heard of the harm­ful effects of the sun.   Did you know all the facts and sci­ence behind how to com­bat the effects of the sun on your skin?

Pamela Anderson read­ing (hope­fully about how to keep healthy in the sun!)

Here are the facts on how to enjoy your life with­out wear­ing a faceshield but still be protected:

• Avoid out­door activ­i­ties in the sun between the hours of 10am to 4pm, even on a cloudy day. Preventative care starts with  avoid­ing direct expo­sure.  Reflective sur­faces (water, snow, con­crete and sand), high alti­tudes and low lat­i­tudes amplify the UV exposure.
• Activities such as dri­ving to work and sit­ting inside by a win­dow may give you sun expo­sure. UVA rays pass through win­dow glass and light­ing emit UV as well.
• Use a broad spec­trum sun­screen with UVB and UVA coverage.
• Check out the active ingre­di­ent on your sun­screen. Sunscreen can be cat­e­go­rized by their chem­i­cal struc­tures: 1. inorganic/physical or 2. organic or chem­i­cal block­ers.  Inorganic sun­screens are chem­i­cals that pro­tect your skin by reflect­ing and scat­ter­ing UV light.  Typically, these are tita­nium diox­ide and zinc oxide.  Organic sun­screens absorb UV light, con­vert­ing the energy to a lower energy wave­length.    Academic jour­nals have dis­cussed the risks of chem­i­cal sun­screens to pro­duce free rad­i­cals that are harm­ful to your skin.    Hence, some sun­screens incor­po­rate antiox­i­dants into their formulations.
• Electronic devices and screens omit other forms of elec­tro­mag­netic radi­a­tion which may con­tribute to skin dete­ri­o­ra­tion and photoaging.

Applying Sunscreen

When? Everyday, even if cloudy or you are indoors.   Apply 15–30 min­utes before expo­sure and reap­ply every 2–3 hours.  Sunscreen wears off and some chem­i­cals only last a few hours.

Where? Your face and don’t for­get your neck, arms, neck etc.

How? Use 3–5 grams for face and neck.  Use two table­spoons or shot glass for the body.

The sun emits a broad spec­trum of elec­tro­mag­netic radi­a­tion from gamma rays to radio waves, some vis­i­ble but most not vis­i­ble to your eyes.  Also, not all the rays reach the earth’s sur­face.    The ultra­vi­o­let spec­trum of light can be divided fur­ther into UVC, UVB and UVA.   UVB rays are sea­sonal caus­ing skin can­cer and sun­burn.  UVA rays also pro­mote skin can­cer, pho­toag­ing and other notice­able dam­age to the skin referred to as aging.

Source and for more information:

www.healthy-aging.advanceweb.com

http://www.skincancer.org/understanding-uva-and-uvb.html