Search Results for: blog the sunscreen alphabet

Sunscreen Dump

Tis the season to clean out the medicine cabinet. Well, at least in my home. End of the summer sales on things like sunscreen, band-aids, and topical ointments serve as the impetus for my annual cleaning. However, this year I’m being extra careful about replacing my old sunscreens with the ones on clearance. A few weeks ago I received an email about sunscreen hazards. According to the Environmental Working Group, some sunscreens can be harmful to your health. The group maintains that the majority of sunscreens on the market shouldn’t be used on adults or children because they contain two … Continue reading →

Picking The Right Sunscreen For Your Family

Not all sunscreens are created equal. Boy, if I had a dime for each time my dermatologist has uttered those words to me I would be able to afford more trips to her office. In my previous blog I tried to provide a translation of the alphabet soup printed on the outside of sunscreen bottles. Basically, you want to look beyond the SPF numbers and choose a product that protects you from both UVA and UVB rays. The good news is that a growing number of sunscreen manufacturers are paying attention and offering more “broad spectrum” products with UVA blockers. … Continue reading →

Deciphering The Sunscreen Alphabet

What a difference a few moles can make. Whereas I was once voted as the high school student most likely to have a tan, I am now considered the most sunscreen savvy mom in my daughter’s playgroup. My transformation didn’t come without suffering several severe sunburns. Each and every one of them is seared into my memory, mainly because they were so incredibly painful. With summer just a few weeks away I thought now would be a good time to re-educate sun lovers about the importance of solar protection. These days most of us are well aware of SPF, but … Continue reading →

Six Winter Skin Savers

Many people have a harder time with their skin during the winter months than any other time of the year! Here are some tips to help keep your largest organ happy during cold weather. Number one: keep up with your moisturizer… especially in the places where you tend to have problems. For me, I find my winter problem spots are the forehead, the knees and elbows, and the feet. And I’m good about applying lotion to my face after I shower… I’m not always so good about the other spots. And they show it! Number two: keep wearing your sunscreen. … Continue reading →

Beneath Your Eyes

I was watching The Colbert Report the other day, and caught a segment on an FDA-approved mini-laser that is designed to treat wrinkles around the eyes at home. I’m not so sure I like the idea of trying to use a laser anywhere on my own face… let alone around the eyes. The skin around the eyes is very delicate — some say the most fragile skin on the entire body. Lots of things can contribute to wrinkles, dark circles, and other damage to the skin beneath your eyes: Sun exposure. UV rays are a major contributor to the development … Continue reading →

Your Skin in Your 40s

Your skin is always changing. Dead skin sheds off and is replaced with new cells — this is pretty much a lifelong process. Around your forties, this cell turnover starts to slow down. There are several major changes in your skin that happen in the forties, including: Slowed cell turnover. This can make your skin look dull — dead skin cells are hanging around longer than they used to. Increased melanin production can cause differences in pigmentation to appear more prominent. Tiny broken capillaries in your skin can cause skin to seem red. Collagen and elastin — the stuff that … Continue reading →

Protect Your Skin with UPF Clothing

As I’ve been driving around lately, I keep seeing billboards advertising SPF clothing. Since the Northern Hemisphere is officially starting summer on June 21st (though it may feel differently in some parts of the country), it’s a good time to look at skin protection! Basically, sun protective clothing uses fabric to protect your skin from the sun. Sounds simple, right? Sun protective clothing was developed in Australia in the 1990s. Why Australia? That country has the highest skin cancer numbers in the whole world — two out of three Australians will be treated for skin cancer during their lifetimes according … Continue reading →

Celebrities and Skin Cancer

Being a self-professed “tanaholic” (blame it on the fact that I was born and raised in Hawaii) I often worry that my days of basting (with baby oil) and baking as a teen might come back to haunt me. These days every time I notice an irregular mole or a raised freckle I speed dial my dermatologist. It doesn’t matter that now (years later) as a mother I am extremely vigilant about protecting my skin (and my family’s), the damage is done. All I can do now is hope and pray that I didn’t sustain irreparable damage. And I know … Continue reading →

Skin Care in the Air

Travel can be rough on your skin. Really, it can be rough on your whole body: sitting still for hours, cramped conditions forcing weird contortions, and more. But for today, let’s focus on your skin. Despite being often surrounded by moist, fluffy clouds, the air inside an airplane is dry. Like desert dry — humidity levels can be as low as five percent. What does that mean for your skin? It means the air can strip away moisture and leave wrinkles and other imperfections more pronounced. As crummy and cranky and tired as flying makes me feel… I sure don’t … Continue reading →

Help for Uneven Skin Tone

A few years ago I started noticing my skin didn’t look quite right. I developed these splotchy dark areas on my cheeks, my upper lip, and on my forehead. Maybe dark isn’t the right word. Discolored is a better one. A neighbor of mine in our current neighborhood here in Nashville told me she’d had the same trouble in her 30s. (Which I am. She’s 50.) She told me hers was due to hormones and the sun. (Which I suspect so is mine. When we lived in Florida I spent a ton of time outdoors. Also, I notice around that … Continue reading →