Simon Veness
07-04-2007, 12:49 PM
Mike Thomas of the Orlando Sentinel writes a very useful blog that includes some fascinating offbeat stuff on the tourism business, and his latest blog concerns the use of suncreams, or rather the right kind of suncream. I won't try to paraphrase, but just copy what he says, which is quite detailed. More importantly, it highlights three products which he rates as the best you can buy. Worth taking note of:
Things you must know, particularly you parents, to prevent death by sunlight!
They told me to use alarmist headlines in my blog. But the above happens to be technically correct. To be brief, after countless hours of research, here are the three sunscreens I would recommend.
Neutrogena, with it’s "Helioplex’’ formula.
Blue Lizard.
Hawaiian Tropic with its "SunSure’’ formula.
Slather them on thick and reapply often. That’s the executive summary. For geeks who like details, and people who want to save money, keep reading. I am banging this out fast so it is unpolished, unedited, lengthy and probably has several spelling errors. I love it. It’s so liberating!
Sunscreens have focused on blocking UVB rays, which cause sunburns. Skin protection factor (SPF) refers only to UVB rays, not the longer UVA rays. It turns out they may be just as bad, perhaps even a major contributor to deadly melanoma. We have three sunscreen ingredients that work against them. If you see a sunscreen that advertises itself as "Broad spectrum’’ and doesn’t contain one of these, do not believe it.
The first two ingredients are zinc oxide, the infamous white goop, and titanium dioxide, also a white goop. They work in the same manner as smearing clay on yourself in the Amazon rain forest. To make you look less like a dork, the sunscreen makers now micronize the stuff so it is less pasty and blends in better. It still can leave a pallor making you resemble a corpse. Some alarmists feel the micro-sized particles will invade your cells and kill you. I don’t. They are not chemicals but inert ingredients. Hence you will see sunscreens with them advertised as chemical free. Their weakness since they are not absorbed by the skin is they can more easily wash off.
The third ingredient is avobenzone (Parsol 1789). This is a chemical that like the UVB blockers is absorbed into your skin and reflects the rays. This is why you are supposed to apply it 20 minutes before going outdoors. The problem with this stuff is that it degrades rather quickly in the sun. So you can get a sunscreen that claims broad spectrum protection and has avobenzone in it. But the avobenzone can degrade while the UVB blockers do not. You don’t get a sunburn (caused by UVB rays) and are oblivious to the fact that you’ve been getting cooked by UVA rays.
Bad. Bad. Bad.
All this is why in a column last year I recommended mailing to Canada for a sunscreen containing an ingredient called Mexoryl, a very effective and stable UVA blocker. It had not been approved by the FDA at that point. Now it is, but is not yet widely available here.
You still can order the Canadian stuff (Ombrelle). But the American sunscreen makers have been doing better. They are coming up with formulations that keep avobenzone from degrading so quickly. And others, like Blue Lizard, are putting Zinc oxide and titanium dioxide in their formulas (by the way, zinc oxide is the better of the two).
From what I’ve seen, Nutragena has the best avobenzone formula, which it calls Helioplex. Blue Lizard has a regular formula that uses zinc oxide and a baby formula (also called sensitive skin – same product) that uses only zinc oxide and titanium dioxide (chemical free!).
A cheaper avobenzone alternative, but not as good as Nutragena by my calculations, is the Hawaiian Tropic SunSure. It smells like rotten coconuts and bananas. For crying out loud, Hawaiian Tropic, come out with a scent free formula. Do you have a chimpanzee in charge of marketing??? I just saw that BullFrog has a formulation with titanium dioxide but don’t know much about it.
Now, let’s talk money. You need to slather on sunscreen thick and you should reapply every couple of hours (no such thing as all-day sunscreen) or after swimming (no such thing as waterproof sunscreen). Using a gallon of Hawaiian Tropic protects you a lot better than using a pint of Neutragena or Blue Lizard. The problem with Neutrogena and Blu Lizard is that they are so expensive, you can tend to scrimp on the application.
So what I do is keep the cheaper stuff for me because I'm obsessive-compulsive about reapplicaion. I use it on the kids when we’re only going out for an hour or so. When we are heading out in the blazing sun for longer periods, maybe in my open boat or to do some swimming, I’ll go with the more expensive stuff, especially on the kids. When my daughter goes to an all-day soccer camp and I will not there to torment her with the tube of sunscreen, I will give her a bath in Neutrogena Ultra Sheer 55 before she leaves the house.
If your little kids get badly sunburned, the odds they will get skin cancer later in life go up considerably. This is why all my friends are getting lesions hacked off their faces and arms. You can save a lot of money by buying Blue Lizard in gallon jugs online.
http://www.coolibar.com/sunscreen-blue-lizard.html
I prefer the baby/sensitive skin formula, with the caveat that it isn’t as waterproof if we are going swimming. You can save a lot more money and get even better protection by getting sun-block clothing, like rash shirts and those swim suits that cover the entire torso – long sleeves optional.
Things you must know, particularly you parents, to prevent death by sunlight!
They told me to use alarmist headlines in my blog. But the above happens to be technically correct. To be brief, after countless hours of research, here are the three sunscreens I would recommend.
Neutrogena, with it’s "Helioplex’’ formula.
Blue Lizard.
Hawaiian Tropic with its "SunSure’’ formula.
Slather them on thick and reapply often. That’s the executive summary. For geeks who like details, and people who want to save money, keep reading. I am banging this out fast so it is unpolished, unedited, lengthy and probably has several spelling errors. I love it. It’s so liberating!
Sunscreens have focused on blocking UVB rays, which cause sunburns. Skin protection factor (SPF) refers only to UVB rays, not the longer UVA rays. It turns out they may be just as bad, perhaps even a major contributor to deadly melanoma. We have three sunscreen ingredients that work against them. If you see a sunscreen that advertises itself as "Broad spectrum’’ and doesn’t contain one of these, do not believe it.
The first two ingredients are zinc oxide, the infamous white goop, and titanium dioxide, also a white goop. They work in the same manner as smearing clay on yourself in the Amazon rain forest. To make you look less like a dork, the sunscreen makers now micronize the stuff so it is less pasty and blends in better. It still can leave a pallor making you resemble a corpse. Some alarmists feel the micro-sized particles will invade your cells and kill you. I don’t. They are not chemicals but inert ingredients. Hence you will see sunscreens with them advertised as chemical free. Their weakness since they are not absorbed by the skin is they can more easily wash off.
The third ingredient is avobenzone (Parsol 1789). This is a chemical that like the UVB blockers is absorbed into your skin and reflects the rays. This is why you are supposed to apply it 20 minutes before going outdoors. The problem with this stuff is that it degrades rather quickly in the sun. So you can get a sunscreen that claims broad spectrum protection and has avobenzone in it. But the avobenzone can degrade while the UVB blockers do not. You don’t get a sunburn (caused by UVB rays) and are oblivious to the fact that you’ve been getting cooked by UVA rays.
Bad. Bad. Bad.
All this is why in a column last year I recommended mailing to Canada for a sunscreen containing an ingredient called Mexoryl, a very effective and stable UVA blocker. It had not been approved by the FDA at that point. Now it is, but is not yet widely available here.
You still can order the Canadian stuff (Ombrelle). But the American sunscreen makers have been doing better. They are coming up with formulations that keep avobenzone from degrading so quickly. And others, like Blue Lizard, are putting Zinc oxide and titanium dioxide in their formulas (by the way, zinc oxide is the better of the two).
From what I’ve seen, Nutragena has the best avobenzone formula, which it calls Helioplex. Blue Lizard has a regular formula that uses zinc oxide and a baby formula (also called sensitive skin – same product) that uses only zinc oxide and titanium dioxide (chemical free!).
A cheaper avobenzone alternative, but not as good as Nutragena by my calculations, is the Hawaiian Tropic SunSure. It smells like rotten coconuts and bananas. For crying out loud, Hawaiian Tropic, come out with a scent free formula. Do you have a chimpanzee in charge of marketing??? I just saw that BullFrog has a formulation with titanium dioxide but don’t know much about it.
Now, let’s talk money. You need to slather on sunscreen thick and you should reapply every couple of hours (no such thing as all-day sunscreen) or after swimming (no such thing as waterproof sunscreen). Using a gallon of Hawaiian Tropic protects you a lot better than using a pint of Neutragena or Blue Lizard. The problem with Neutrogena and Blu Lizard is that they are so expensive, you can tend to scrimp on the application.
So what I do is keep the cheaper stuff for me because I'm obsessive-compulsive about reapplicaion. I use it on the kids when we’re only going out for an hour or so. When we are heading out in the blazing sun for longer periods, maybe in my open boat or to do some swimming, I’ll go with the more expensive stuff, especially on the kids. When my daughter goes to an all-day soccer camp and I will not there to torment her with the tube of sunscreen, I will give her a bath in Neutrogena Ultra Sheer 55 before she leaves the house.
If your little kids get badly sunburned, the odds they will get skin cancer later in life go up considerably. This is why all my friends are getting lesions hacked off their faces and arms. You can save a lot of money by buying Blue Lizard in gallon jugs online.
http://www.coolibar.com/sunscreen-blue-lizard.html
I prefer the baby/sensitive skin formula, with the caveat that it isn’t as waterproof if we are going swimming. You can save a lot more money and get even better protection by getting sun-block clothing, like rash shirts and those swim suits that cover the entire torso – long sleeves optional.