If you’ve been following the blog for any amount of time, you’ll know that I’m a stickler and strong advocate for wearing sunscreen. I’ve written a lot about the importance of wearing sun protection in the past (see posts here, here, here and here), but following the heatwave that’s overtaken London this week, I wanted to bring more attention to the product most people overlook. In this post, I’ll be touching on everything from why you should be wearing sunscreen to why it’s especially important for Black people to wear sunscreen and my favourite sunscreens.
Why You Should Be Wearing Sunscreen
Let’s start with the basics. Firstly, you should be wearing sunscreen helps protect your skin from damaging ultra violet (UV) rays from the sun. These rays are UVA, UVB and UVC rays. UVC rays are the most damaging, but luckily our ozone layer filters this out so we don’t need to worry about it. UVA and UVB rays, however, are not filtered and come through to earth. UV rays are known to cause cancer, premature aging, fine lines, wrinkles, sunspots, hyperpigmentation, discolouration and so much more, so making sure you’re skin is properly protected helps reduce these issues. Sunscreen helps combat these by creating a barrier that reflects or disrupts UV rays. It also does this by absorbing UV rays and releasing their energy as heat.
Sunscreen comes in different strengths that are designated by their sun protection factor (SPF). This factor determines how long you’re protected from the sun before you’re likely to start burning. Generally speaking, the higher the factor you wear, the longer it’ll take for you to burn and the longer you can go without reapplying (although technically you should be reapplying every couple of hours if you’re constantly exposed to the sun or get into water). More recently it’s been advised that when searching for a sunscreen you should look for one that is “broad spectrum” meaning it’ll protect against UVA and UVB rays as some sunscreens only protect against one of them. You can usually find this represented as stars that can be found on sunscreen bottles.
Typically you should be wearing sunscreen every day as the sun is always radiating with UV rays – yep even when it’s cloudy and gloomy outside. Wearing sunscreen every day helps protect your skin continuously. Experts suggest wearing SPF15 daily as this can reduce risk of developing melanoma by 50%, but when the mercury hits, like it did this week, I personally favour something a little stronger – but then again, when don’t I lol
Sunscreen For Black Women
Now, there’s a misconception that Black people do not need sunscreen. While we originate from arguably the warmest, most sun-exposed continent on the planet, and our skin may have a naturally occurring SPF13, Black people still need to wear sunscreen. Sure, we don’t necessarily need SPF50 like I’m guilty of favouring, but we still need protection from the sun as we’re still prone to burning and skin cancer. Did you know that Black people are amongst the highest to die from melanomas despite being at lower risk of actually having it? Crazy, huh?
Additionally, just because we may be blessed with a darker complexion that protects us a little better than our fairer counterparts, we are still at risk of developing fine lines, wrinkles, hyperpigmentation and discolouration. Therefore, it’s important to make sure we can prevent this. As I like to say: if not for health, then at least for vanity reasons we should be making sure our faces (at least) are covered in sunscreen.
My Favourite Sunscreens
When it comes to sunscreen, my favourite brand is definitely Nivea. Like most people I’ve been using Nivea for many, many years and love their products. Back in the day I used to use the same sunscreen for my face and body, but in the last year or so I’ve started using different products for different parts of my body.
For my face I can’t get enough of the Nivea Sun UV Face Q10 Anti-Age & Pigments SPF50 sunscreen. I’m currently on my second tube and I know my skincare routine would not be complete without this gem! I could honestly write a whole blog (in fact I have lol) about why I love this sunscreen, but for the sake of this post, I’ll keep things short.
- Rubs in like a dream with zero white residue
- Lightweight
- Not sticky
- Makeup applies easily on top
- SPF50 duh
- Super affordable – only £6 in Tesco and Sainsbury’s!
For my body I use the Nivea Sun Protect & Moisture SPF50 sunscreen. While I do like it because it rubs in easily and doesn’t leave a weird coloured film on my body, it does get sticky after a few hours which is kind of gross. I don’t use this sunscreen anymore, but I also really like the Hawaiian Tropic Satin Protection sunscreen.
While we’re enjoying having fun in the sun, it’s important to remember to make sure we’re doing so responsibly. For more information on sunscreen, check out skincare.org that is full of amazing articles and resources. Also a quick Google will help with any questions you may have.
alice
xo
