A primer on sunscreen
Think you know everything there is to know about sun protection? Check out Burning questions about sun protection and see for yourself!
As a health journalist, I consider it my job to be a raving doctor’s-home-number-on-speed-dial hypochondriac. Thus, I took every precaution possible when our family took a lakeside vacation last summer in northern Ontario. My safe-sun arsenal stockpiled more than 80 bucks worth of waterproof, PABA-free sunscreen in strengths ranging from SPF 30 to 45 right through to burka. I wore sexless, sagging Ts and a nerdy baseball cap. I even reapplied.
Upon my return, I ran into a friend. “Wow,” he said dryly, looking me up and down, “where the hell have you been, Brazil?”
Clearly, the sunscreen gods had forsaken me. But how? I spent the money, I slathered it on, I reapplied for goodness’ sake! It took a phone call to one of Canada’s pre-eminent dermatologists to realize I didn’t know jack about sun protection.
“Any adult will require at least four tablespoons of sunscreen [for the entire body] every two to three hours,” admonished Paul Cohen, a Toronto dermatologist. It would appear my single daily reapplication might as well have been a sashay through a fine mist of PAM. “If you’re going through only one bottle of sunscreen a week for a family, you’re not using enough,” says Cohen. That was the beginning of the lecture.
There seems to be a lot about sun exposure, as well as the white ooze that’s supposed to protect us from it, that some cosmetic companies don’t tell us, that we just don’t want to hear, or that is just utterly confusing. With one in seven Canadians developing skin cancer in their lifetime, and environmental and consumer organizations pounding their fists for stiffer quality standards in a suncare industry worth about $120 million in Canada, according to Cosmetics magazine, a brief primer is in order.
A tan isn’t healthy; it’s damage. Period
Contrary to what Donatella Versace might think, no tan is a safe tan. According to Cohen, whether you burn or not is irrelevant; you’re still getting sun damage with a tan. It just takes the injury 20 to 30 years to surface, making those spots on my cheeks an unsavoury reminder of sitting poolside all day listening to my Flashdance cassette.
“After 40, you can actually pick out the people who spent more time in the sun from those who didn’t,” says another prominent Toronto dermatologist, Lisa Kellett. “Just look for the brown spots, crow’s feet, folds, sagging. You pay now or you pay later.” It’s also those people who keep derms in business. “A lot of deluded people with skin like leather come into my office saying, ‘But I tan really well! I don’t burn!’” laughs Cohen. “I simply say, ‘A tan is barely the equivalent of an SPF 2. So protect yourself now, or come see me for lots of Botox.’”
