Editor’s Note: For the first half of my adult life, I had no sun sense. I spent as much time as possible outside with not a single thought given to the damage it was doing to my skin. I remember one especially painful spring break in Florida during college when I had a blistering sunburn that I tried to relieve with dabs of white vinegar. That was my mom’s solution to our childhood sunburns. We smelled like dinner salads, but it did seem to relieve the pain.
Like most people my age (66), we simply didn’t have access to decent sunblock. We bought tanning lotion and oil, or made our own out of baby oil and iodine, and hoped for the best. The first water-resistant sunscreen wasn’t developed unbtil 1967, and the US Food and Drug Administration only started regulating sunscreen in 1978, the year I graduated from high school. No wonder my skin is freckled.
I don’t leave the house without sunblock on my face most of the year. But I know I should do better. A Cleveland Clinic dermatologist tells us why we need to protect our skin, especially as we get older.
One in five Americans will develop skin cancer by the age of 70. Talk about a sobering fact.
“A tricky thing when it comes to skin cancer and skin aging, frankly, is that when we’re young, we don’t think about the things we’re doing now because it doesn’t affect us in the same way. But by the time you get to be 40, 50, 60, and you’re seeing those effects of what you’ve done earlier on, you’re going to wish you put your sunscreen on,and you’re going to wish you had protected yourself,” says Jennifer Lucas, MD, dermatologist at Cleveland Clinic.
Dr. Lucas says there are many ways to protect your skin from the sun, including limiting your time outdoors, wearing sun-protective clothing and applying plenty of sunscreen.
She notes that sunscreen really should be worn year-round, not just in the summer, since UV rays are always present. So, which kind is best to buy?
Dr. Lucas recommends buying a brand that is broad spectrum and has an SPF of 30 or higher. It should also be water resistant. That way, if you sweat or go swimming, it won’t wash off right away.
“You want to make sure you get it on dry skin about 15 minutes before you go outside. That gives it the opportunity to get settled in and have the effects you expect when you’re outside. And then you need to remember to reapply. This is the part that nobody does well. So at least every two hours, you want to reapply that sunscreen. And you want to do it sooner if you’re outside playing, sweating, getting wet. Anything that may physically remove the sunscreen, you want to remember to reapply,” she emphasizes.
She adds thatsunscreen needs to be applied all over the body, including places like the scalp and top of your feet. She also reminds people to protect their eyelids and lips. They can get burnt, too.
