There Is No Such Thing As A Healthy Tan

I don’t know about you, but that phrase always makes me wanna thumb my nose and say something juvenile and snotty.   I don’t really CARE that a tan is unhealthy.  It just looks better.  Right??

Well, like it or not, sun exposure is the single most harmful thing you can do to your skin.  Sun exposure is the overriding cause of wrinkles and dark spots and dry skin, to say nothing of skin cancer.  And sun protection is by far the most effective anti-aging treatment money can by.

And here’s the clincher.  Most people are not protecting themselves adequately, even if they THINK they are.  Did you know that you should be applying sunscreen every day, regardless of whether or not you are planning to sit by the pool or the ocean? 

Your casual sun exposure (riding in the car, going to and from the car, walking to lunch on your lunch break) is enough to be dangerous.

And did you also know that you should probably be using twice as much sunscreen as you are used to?  Sunscreen should be applied liberally enough to all sun-exposed areas that it forms a film when initially applied.  But because people do not use nearly enough, they are not getting the benefit of the SPF listed on the bottle.  The bottle may SAY it has an SPF of 30, but if you are applying it sparingly, you are only getting an SPF of 15 or less.  And then if you don’t reapply within a couple hours, your sun protection diminishes even further.

It’s also important that your sunscreen blocks both UVA and UVB rays.

There is always the vitamin D concern (that was always my excuse for getting a moderate tan), and doctors are not all in agreement on how much we need and how much we are absorbing from our diets.  But, as Daniel Yarosh, Ph.D. says in his book on The New Science of Perfect Skin, "you don’t need to chuck your sunscreen to get your Vitamin D."  He claims that the vitamin D concern is overblown and that we get most of the vitamin D we need from our diets.  He also recommends taking a multi-vitamin as a dietary supplement.

I have become much better about applying sunscreen recently, especially to my face.  Thanks to the miracle of self-tanners, I can have my "healthy tan" and eat it too!!  (If you are interested in Chic Critique reviews of self tanners, there is a category for them on the sidebar.)

Jo-Lynne is a wife and mom of three, and in addition to running Chic Critique, she blogs daily at Musings of a Housewife.