The Serious Side of Summer Sun

I am a summer girl through and through. Every year when Winter is finally over and the sun begins to peek out again I come back to life along with the flowers and trees.  The sun is the key to my heart.  It is my license to run free outdoors again.  Whether I am sitting contented in my garden, traipsing along a rocky trail in a nearby state park or body surfing in the frigid ocean waves of the Maine coast I come alive in the sunlight.

But there is a price to pay for that daily dose of light.  According to the American Cancer Society the majority of more than one million cases of non-melanoma skin cancer diagnosed every year are sun-related.  On top of that, in 2006 over 60,000 cases of Melanoma, the most serious type of skin cancer, were diagnosed.  Skin cancer is the most common type of cancer.  It accounts for nearly half of all cancer cases nationwide.  Protecting ourselves from UV damage is an essential part of a healthy lifestyle.

The American Cancer Society recommends avoiding direct sunlight between 10:00 am and 4:00 pm as your first precaution against skin cancer.  For most of us that is simply not an option.  Between commuting, working, and simply enjoying the outdoors most of us will find ourselves in direct sunlight almost every day.  Also, you may be surprised to know that UV rays can penetrate clothing, clouds, fog and glass, including home and automobile windows.

So what can we do to protect ourselves?  The first line of defense is always sensibility.  Do not over-expose yourself to sunlight on a regular basis and never ever expose yourself to sunlight without some kind of SPF protection.  The classic SPF protection is sun screen.  The American Cancer Society recommends using sun screens with an SPF of at least 15, and they recommend that you reapply every two hours no matter what degree SPF you are using. Even sun screens as high as SPF 60 must still be reapplied regularly to remain effective.

The next step is physical cover.  Wide brimmed hats, parasols, and visors are all great choices for giving your face a little extra protection.  Sunglasses are available with 99% and 100% UV absorption lenses.  These can help to prevent cataracts and other serious sun-related eye problems.  Your clothes can even become UV barriers.  Many retailers offer clothing that comes with SPF protection.  Additionally there is a product available called Sunguard that you can use to add SPF to your own clothes. The product is added to your clothes in the washing machine and can change a plain white T-shirt from UPF 5 to UPF 30.  Garments will remain effective for up to 20 washes at which time, Sunguard can be applied again.

There are even window films available to screen harmful UV rays from entering your home.  A list of products approved by the Skin Cancer Foundation can be found here.

For more information on skin cancers or sun protection please visit the American Cancer Society’s Sun Safety Page or The Skin Cancer Foundation’s website.

Comments

[Armi]

Hi, Emmy! Thank you for writing this very informative and timely article. As a nurse, I hope it serves as a reminder to everyone that as nice as that tan may look now, in a couple of years it can result in sun-damaged skin and skin cancer which is NOT nice to have, much less look at.

[Emmy]

I'm glad that you enjoyed our Summer Sun article. I know personally how easy it can be to forget to protect yourself while having outdoor fun. Hopefully this article will help to remind other readers as well as myself to play it safe this Summer.

[SurferGirl]

With skin cancer on the rise,don't forget the UV protective clothing! Surfers have used rash guard shirts for years but it's just recently that the SPF 150+ protection these shirts provide while you're in the water has been discovered by the rest of the non-surfing, beach going population.

[Emmy]

Thanks for sharing your information about SPF beach gear. That is very exciting to me, personally, since I am most likely to get burnt while boogy boarding or surfing at the beach. I never seem to reapply the sun screen often enough. I'll be sure to check out rash guard shirts.

[The skin care expert]

I have always known that the amount of skin cancer cases due to the sun were quite high, but I didn’t know it would be close to 1 million! Now that I think about it, the sun has been the primary enemy of our skins since we could ever remember. Even cavemen that lived in the Stone Age couldn’t escape the rays of our sun. I feel that it’s more important than ever to take care of our skin when we are out in the sun. Protecting from UV damage is vital to giving our skins a long and healthy life.

[Nancy]

Thank you for this article entry. It is very helpful. But I was wondering if you can do one on natural or homemade sunscreen because I worry a little about using commercial mass-produced sunscreen and would really like a healthier alternative.

[The Natural Beauty Workshop]

Hi Nancy,

Thanks for visiting The Natural Beauty Workshop!  Formulating a handmade sun screen is a little bit harder than it may seem.  Because there is no method of determining the spf of a handmade product, it makes the formulation more or less a guessing game.  Natural skin care companies usually enlist the help of a professional lab to create their sun care formulations, and then have that lab determine the formulas spf.  At home, we can use ingredients that are known to help block UVA or UVB rays, but since we dont know what spf the final product is, it cant be counted on as a reliable sun screen.

I hope that explanation makes sense.  It is a little bit of a confusing topic.  All that being said, there are plenty of natural ingredients that are known to inhibit sun damage one way or another.  Including these kinds of ingredients in your recipes is a great way to improve the healthfulness of many types of recipes including lotions, creams, balms, body butters, and soaps.  Some of my favorites include Cupuacu Butter, Tomato Seed Oil, Coffee Bean Butter, Red Raspberry Seed Oil, and Buriti Fruit Oil.  You can also try adding some Titanium Dioxide at 1 - 5% in most types of recipes to amp up the sun protection.

There are also more and more natural brands of sun screen becoming available commercially.  Try checking a local health food store, or check out some of the artisans in the Sun Care listings on Beauty by the Batch: http://beautybythebatch.com/artisandirectory/suncaretanning.asp