BellaOnline Forums Beauty and Self Beauty Basics Sun Screens

[color:"green"]The article is well written. I have one thing to add to sun protection factor calulations. I have always heard you multiply the rating of a sunscreen by the number of minutes you are able to naturally stay out in the sun before burning. So if you burn in 20 minutes the caulculation for SPF15 would be 300 minutes or 5 hours. But if you are fair skinned and burn in 10 minutes a SPF15 would only allow you 150 minutes or two and a half hours. [/color]

All of us have raised few issues about sunscreens in this thread.
I would wish to summarise them here-

1. What is SPF?
2. does SPF differ for different skin colors?
I don't think so
3. What about the chemicals used in sun screens? do they not enter the body? If yes, how has FDA approved them?
4. what about natural sun screens? do they really work?

In addition to these I want to draw your attention to- clothing and its SPF.
One more important issue i wish to raise here- It is found that skin cancer is seen in adults , who were exposed to sun rays as children till 10 years of age. This is very important information. If you look at some ultraviolet photographs that show the innder damage, you can see this clealy. So please keep your children very safe from sun. Maximum damge gets done by age 10.

I am researching more on the issues raised here and will be meeting a dermatologist about them. I will keep on posting my thoughts here and hope to learn more from all of you.

SPF is an abbreviation for Sun Protection Factor

SPF does differ for different skin colors, not as far as sunscreen goes, but as far as a person's own skin goes. Darker-skinned people have more melanin in their skin than lighter-skinned people. These varying levels are what makes different skin tones and shades. If you've got darker skin, you have a higher natural tolerance to withstand sun exposure than people who are paler than you in skin tone.

Here's an article from the Washington Post that talks about the FDA, sunscreen and the chemicals in it.

As far as natural sunscreens go, do their ingredients protect you against UVA and UVB radiation? If they do, great, they'll work. If not, you'll probably just wind up aplying something oily to yourself and burning more.

Hello Rae_BodyArtPagan, you have said-

SPF does differ for different skin colors, not as far as sunscreen goes, but as far as a person's own skin goes.

I am sorry, but I could not understand what you said in this statement. could you please explain? Thank you so much.

Good question chmohatta.

Everything and anything you put on your skin is absorbed by your skin. I'm not crazy about the chemicals being absorbed but it's a good way of protecting yourself against the UVA and UVB rays.

I haven't checked but I wonder if there is a more a natural sunscreen/sunblock product out there.

The darker you are, the more melanin in your skin and therefore you don't burn as easily and could go with an SPF product of 30 instead of one with just 4 like a lighter skinned person would. Lighter skinned people have less melanin and burn easily therefore they need more protection.

i have a friend whose skin is fair. when she goes out to beaches, she wouldnt like to put sunscreen or whatever. i wanna prove to her that aint good for her.what should i tell her?

The best method is to make your friend convince herself about the danger.please request her to read these-

sun damage
and sun screens