Could Your Sunscreen Be Dangerous?

Other Sunscreen Ingredients

You don’t just have to watch out for toxic active ingredients. Other ingredients, including seemingly innocuous ones, can be found in sunscreens. A good example of that is retinyl palmate. Made from palm oil, this is a version of Vitamin A, which sounds like it would be a good thing. In fact, though, when it’s exposed to sunlight, it breaks down into chemicals that can be carcinogenic.

Spray-on Sunscreen

No-one should need to have the appeal of spray-on sunscreen explained to them., Put it this way: If you don’t get why spray sunscreen is tempting, I know for a fact you don't have kids. But spray sunscreens normally have all the same nasties as other chemical sunscreens, plus they’re aerosolized. Even the ones that work by a physical pump, not an onboard propellant, produce a fine mist that’s easily inhaled and absorbed through the lining of the lungs.

Sunscreen That Just Plain Doesn’t Work

Sunscreen protection is based on SPF — sun protection factor.But SPF can be very misleading. You’d think a sunscreen with SPF 60 would be twice as effective as SPF30. But what does effective mean? SPF measures how long you can stay in the sun without burning. SPF 30 means you can stay in the sun 30 times longer without burning. But the higher you go the less reliable SPF is. When a SPF 100 sunscreen was tested independently it came in with SPFs ranging from 37 to 83. The chances are your high-SPF sinscreen doesn’t offer anything likethe protection it claims. And the kicker is, SPF only measures one kind of UV light:the kind that gives you sunburn. Trouble is, it’s the other kind that gives you cancer - and SPF doesn’t measure that at all.

I feel your pain. Especially if you’re a person of color, bright white isn’t really your shade for sunscreens. But good non-nano zinc oxide sunscreens don’t have to look like gloss paint. And there’s a secret weapon: tinted zinc oxide.

Zinc oxide is white. As in, WHITE. But that means it takes on the color of whatever's next to it, so it’s possible to make a sunscreen that’s basically zinc oxide, plus the base — an oil, normally — and a tinting agent. Basically we’re talking sun-resistant foundation. While the idea of wearing foundation might not appeal to guys, it’s often undetectable and it beats wearing something that actually plays havoc with your hormones.

READ Beware Of Sun Damage To Your Eyes

If that doesn’t appeal, your best options are to have an anti-sun strategy. This should include gradually acclimatising. Being tanned isn't what exposes you to the risk of cancer, it's being burned that does the damage,m so build sun exposure slowly. And combine an effective sunscreen with long sleeves, a hat or head cover, and regularly seeking shade, even if it’s only for ten minutes at a time. Try to stay out of the sun during the hottest, brightest parts of the day - basically, whenever your shadow is shorter than you are — and monitor yourself for signs of discomfort that come before burning. Remember that it's really easy to get sunburned in the water: water isn’t opaque to UV so you can get burned through it but it does reflect UV, meaning that you can get a sunburn from underneath if you’re in a boat!