RSSSUNSCREEN MATTERS TO YOU
October 17, 2007
This is the second article in the Skin Care category, but by order of importance, it should have been the first. I might keep posting it once a month to make sure no one misses it.
To women of all ages : Do not delay another day
Whether you are fifteen or forty, you need to be wearing sunblock on your face, neck, and hands every day. On the day of a January blizzard, you should still be wearing sunscreen. The product must contain protection against UVA rays (the cancer and wrinkle rays that go right through windows) and UVB rays (the sunburn rays). SPF numbers only tell you about UVB protection. You can read more about UVA and UVB here.
If you want time to stand still on your face, then this is the tool that will bring you closest to that objective. If you’re spending money on face cream and not using a sunblock every day, you may as well flush your money. It is well established that it is not time that ages skin; old-looking skin is a result of sun exposure. This fact is known. It is not debatable. Look at the skin on your butt. That was how the skin on your face once looked.
You will regret it
Listen. This is important. When you look in the mirror 10 years from now, you will kick yourself. Damage will be done that even lasers and plastic surgeons cannot reverse. But it is NEVER too late. We are not women who go through life letting situations just happen to us; we happen to situations. Take what control you can and know that when you are 75 and looking back, you used the tools you had available in every aspect of your wellness.
Is it easier to live with bad things if you know you did all you could to prevent them? Some might say not, but I wholeheartedly disagree. I started wearing sunscreen every single day when I was 38, about 20 years too late. And yes, I kick myself every day.
It’s not entirely our fault. Much of this damage is in place by the time you’re 20, and the world did not understand the sun’s effect on skin when we were kids. Our parents’ generation did not have access to the information and products that we have. For us, there is NO EXCUSE. Not laziness. Not the idea that you don’t like the feeling of a layer on your skin. None, unless you particularly want to have age lines and brown spots, wrinkles and slack skin tone when you’re 45.
Not 80. Not 60. The harm that the sun has done your skin appears sooner than that, at a time when you still want life to be youthful and vigorous, and you’re wondering why you don’t quite look the part. There may be those fortunate women whose self-esteem is unaffected by age lines and gray hairs, or who can be completely be proud that they were earned by the work of a life well-lived, but I think most of us would rather the lines just not be there.
The vitamin D argument
There is an argument about Vitamin D and the need for sun exposure, especially now with the new information about its power as an antioxidant. This is important information, with the expected controversy to go along with it. There are those who feel that use of sunblock to prevent production of vitamin D presents a more dangerous threat than skin damage by sunlight. Others disagree.
I think this discussion on Vitamin D from Wikipedia is quite good. The middle road always seems to be where I am most comfortable, so I do allow unprotected skin to be exposed to the sun for a few minutes every day. It only take 15 minutes twice a week to make all the Vitamin D you need.
I am not a person who uses supplements, such as Vitamin D3 tablets. I believe that natural processes are always better than pills. The single concentrated chemical in the pill cannot begin to replace the complexity of what our bodies have evolved to do.
Two great sunscreens
My favorite sunscreen, and one of my top 5 all-round favorite products, is Estee Lauder Daywear Plus Multi Protection Anti-oxidant Lotion SPF 30 for Normal/Combination Skin. Its texture and wearability are as close to perfect as any sunscreen I’ve used. It contains some excellent skin-benefit agents (this information can be found at http://www.paulaschoice.com/, but you’ll need to sign up for the free eNewsletter to download the .pdf file called Best of Beauty 2006 to access this information; go ahead and do it; it’s easy; post a comment if I can help). It is not one bit greasy, even under makeup in July, not an easy feature to find in a sunblock with a SPF 30. It is my year-round sunscreen of choice.
From May to Oct, if I am not working and will be outside more, I wear Vichy Capital Soleil 60. I like it a lot but it is does leave a shiny face. I mix it with a little foundation or tinted sunscreen to counteract the slight white mask effect and to even my skin tone. With a quick fluff of powder over it, it is just fine. OK so I’m shiny in summer. I don’t care. I think of it as a reminder to others that they should be as well.
Make a small change now. You will love yourself even more later.
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