Recent study shows that the highly used sunscreen in times of extreme heat doesn’t actually protect our skin from damaging factors. In fact, 42% of men and 27% of women avoid sunscreen. The majority of adults don’t actually use sunscreen at all and that seems not to be that worrying.
What should worry us is the burning sun and what we should do is avoid long exposure to those nasty sun rays that could do us so much harm. Skin cancer is the worst that could happen to us after inappropriate and long hours of sun exposure.
Anyhow, cosmetic companies and dermatologists usually suggest that sunscreen may lower the risk to develop skin affections, thus some of us use it regularly, when the sun is shining bright and hot. What’s really concerning is that those of us who use sunscreen on a yearly basis, when the weather is hot, aren’t protected at all from the harmful rays.
The Environmental Working Group has released some reviews for more than 1.700 SPF products. Their findings are not at all optimistic. It seems that 80% of all tested items “offer inferior sun protection or contain worrisome ingredients”.
One of those nasty substances is the highly used oxybenzone that can penetrate the skin barriers and upset the hormone system. On the black list of ingredients we also found the retinyl palmitate, a vitamin A composite that is known to boost sun sensitivity and speed growth of tumors. The question still remains: What should we use in order to avoid sun burns and keep away from that gruesome skin cancer we are all exposed to, with temperatures rising each year and sun becoming more harmful?
Researchers don’t yet have an answer for that but instead they are doing a good job in telling us not to use. The worst of the sunscreens released on the markets is Neutrogena, according to media reports. More than 80% of its products contain oxybenzone, close to a third of their cosmetic releases contain retinyl palmitate, while the baby sunscreen contains methylisothiazolinone, a preservative considered highly unsafe in leave-on products, all across Europe.
What’s surprising in the Neutrogena study is that they are among the only ones who released a sunscreen with SPF levels up to 100 and beyond. One may think that this could be the perfect deal, keeping away those harmful sun beams.
The FDA reports that usually, protection is set to reach only a 50 SPF protection. Neutrogena is using a marketing trick to get customers into believing their products are less harmful when actually it’s more like the opposite. So from all the sunscreens on the market, Neutrogena is the one we must avoid. Also, on the black list of items there are products from brands like Copertone, CVS and Banana Boat as well.
It’s highly important for us to become aware that the SPF factor only refers to protection against UVB rays that cause sunburns but not against the UVA rays, which are those harmful beans that cause skin cancer and speed skin aging. One in five Americans are affected by skin cancer on a yearly basis. So, before longing to spend endless hours in front of the mighty sun, we must always think twice, check the ingredients on our sunscreen and try to avoid indulging ourselves in sunbaths.
Image Source: lipstickandluxury.com
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