Protecting Your Skin: The Importance of Sunscreen and SPF

We’ve heard many times, over and over again, of the importance of wearing sunscreen to prevent skin cancer from developing. It’s not only the fear of skin cancer, it’s also the effect the sun has on our skin’s ability to stay vital and young-looking. The sun, though it’s the energy source of the planet and helps our bodies get their needed doses of vitamin D, due to the damage we’ve done to our protective layers of the atmosphere, can now cause serious harm and affect the development of brown spots and wrinkles, freckles, and molds. So, wearing SPF daily, depending on the season and day, can reduce all these risks and keep you young-looking even in old age. In the text below, we’ll delve into the importance of wearing sunscreen and number the many reasons why you should incorporate this practice into your daily routine. 

The Threat of UV Radiation

UV radiation can be classified into two distinctive categories, UVA and UVB. As the name suggests, it’s radiation, or a type of radiation, damaging the protective layers of our cells and breaking down our DNA. Whether or not exposure to this kind of radiation may be lethal to the body depends on the kind of harm it might do. Let’s take, for example, UVA light. These rays penetrate the skin on a deeper level, leading to premature aging and wrinkles. It affects the skin more effectively and more intensely and it might pose a certain threat to your overall health. UVB rays are primarily responsible for sunburn and can directly damage the DNA in skin cells, leading to skin cancer. 

Both of these rays can damage and cause melanoma, the deadliest type of skin cancer, and it’s a direct result of these cosmic rays breaking down our body on a more molecular level without us even noticing it. That’s why we have the importance of sunscreens with a higher SPF factor, as they serve as a protective layer on the sun, blocking specifically these UVA and UVB rays while allowing our skin to slowly adapt to the heat and the sun by triggering the releases of melanocyte-stimulating hormone that causes pigmentation. So you’ll get a nice dark color while lowering the risk of skin cancer-related diseases. 

Benefits of Regular Sunscreen Use

By now, it’s obvious why and how sunscreen helps protect the skin from developing skin cancer directly caused by the damage the sun’s rays have on our body on a deeper and molecular level. Sunscreen is effective due to two minerals that have been proven to block the sun’s rays and disperse them, therefore making a protective layer for our bodies. The minerals titanium dioxide and zinc oxide have been clinically tested and proven to have these properties without causing further damage to the body. You might have your doubts about the specific brand, as TikTok culture is making it difficult to make an informed decision and it seems everyone knows everything all of a sudden. We always advise sticking to proven brands with a long-lasting and established tradition, such as Beauty of Joseon sunscreen or similar brands with a similar pedigree and content. It’s not that you have to buy any specific brand; it’s important to keep in mind the ingredients listed, but the more expensive sunscreens tend to extract these minerals from more reliable sources, so the price tag on the bottle. So, price does play a certain role and not all of them are the same. Whatever sunscreen you take, it’s important to apply it no matter what because, in the end, your health is what counts. 

Understanding SPF Levels

One thing we have to understand is that no sunscreen can block the sun’s rays effectively 100%, otherwise, you’d stay the same color as you were before sunbathing and you’d never trigger the release of certain hormones causing pigmentation. However, SPF ratings indicate the level of protection: for example, SPF 30 means it would take 30 times longer for the skin to burn than without protection. The higher the SPF, the better the chances of protecting yourself from the dangerous effects of the sun, so going with an SPF 50 factor might be the right choice for a vacation on the beach, while maybe on a cloudy day with a bit of sun high up in the north, a 25 SPF factor should do the trick as well. 

Proper Application Techniques

General sunscreen should be applied at least 15 minutes before going out in the open. You’ll need to reply to it every two hours, possibly depending on how much exposure you have to water or how much you’re sweating. Don’t miss spots that are usually hard to reach, such as the ears and the back of your neck, and make sure to spread it evenly, especially on the beach where your whole body is exposed to the sun at all times. After a certain while, once you notice you’ve been gaining some nice brown color, you don’t have to apply it as much as you did before as the body has built a certain resistance but you’ll still need to use it as long as you’re exposed to the Sun. 

Environmental Considerations 

You’ll have to keep in mind the effect sunscreens might have on the environment. As we said, the two main minerals causing the blockage of the sun’s rays are usually harmless, but other ingredients might disrupt marine life and affect natural ecosystems. Sunscreens contain ingredients like oxybenzone and octinoxate, which are usually the most widespread and the ones we’re referring to, but that can be solved by simply looking out for certain ingredients on the list to make sure you’re not buying anything that can cause any damage to nature. 

All in all, sunscreen and protection from the sun are things we should be taking seriously, especially with the damage we’ve done to the ozone layers that usually have this protective effect. Because of all the environmental effects we’ve been causing with carbon emissions, global temperatures are rising and we’ve been exposed more to the sun’s heat than before. Be safe and wear your sunscreen to prevent premature aging of the skin and the development of cancerous growths.