Sunscreens come in all different shapes and sizes, and SPF’s! Waterproof, very waterproof, very very very waterproof (I’m not kidding, this is actually on a product label; baby sunscreen, children’s sunscreen, bug repellant sunscreen, SPF 8 to SPF 105+!!! My exclamations are purely sarcastic here; as are most of my blurbs about absurdly overstated hugely false skincare claims, yes this refers to all of my articles, and I give you exhibit F, SPF 100+. This is about as bogus as Loreal’s commercial for NEW sulfate free shampoo and conditioner. There is no possible way to test that an SPF 70 is actually effective for the duration of time that it claims on the bottle. Why? Because it will either melt or sweat off, or simply break down!

Let’s use myself as an example. SPF stands for Sun Protection Factor, or, it used to. This should mean the amount of minutes I can remain in the sun before I start to become noticeably burnt (pink/red) due to excessive exposure to UVB (burning) rays. According to a Neutrogena SPF 70+ Sunscreen, this would mean I am protected at least 70 times passed my 60 minute burn factor (the amount of time, approximately, before my skin will start to burn if I’m baking in the sun without any sunscreen protection). So, if I were to trust this SPF 70, I would be protected for approximately 4,200 minutes after I apply my sunscreen! Or in standard terms, 70 hours!! Wow, that is some GOOD sunscreen. I just watched Jennifer Garner’s pretty face on the latest summer campaign for Neutrogena SPF 100!!! They were sued for this in 2010 and have not changed their course one bit! I repeat, if I were to trust that, I would be blistered, peeling, and in severe, medically treated agony. It has happened to me numerous times in my unaware childhood days.

So here is the sunscreen knowledge that will hopefully save you from being in agony during your next outing or vacation due to mislabeling.

1. True, beneficial research stops at SPF 50 (some Doctors say SPF 30). I recommend if you have not had precancers or any cancers removed or diagnosed, and do not burn easily, you are fine with a daily spf 30 sunscreen. If you have photo-aged skin or sensitive skin or have had several burns in your life, your skin is more sensitive and prone to burning or aging. You MUST MUST reapply that sunscreen every 2 hours for you to maintain the proper level of protection.

2. If you have skin like mine, burns easily, is sensitive and is beginning to show aging signs, I recommend you use an SPF 50, daily. No higher, because it does not protectively exist in the real world (maybe in the make-believe SPF world, but we are going to come off of that naive SPF cloud and plant our feet firmly on skin care aisle floor). And, for you on those long outside days you also need to reapply about every 90 minutes to keep from burning and to keep those harmful rays from doing damage to the lower layers.

HYPE WORDS: Water-proof, baby, child, water-resistant, very very very water-resistant (what??), SPF 70+, SPF 100+, sweat proof, sport – all falsely advertised. This way, when you’re out running, you can apply a sport sunscreen. And when you’re just running errands, you can apply a daily radiance spf 15 moisturizer for the face, and when you’re swimming, you can apply a water-resistant one. (That’s big bucks for the sunscreen industry).

Bottom line, all sunscreens wear off in about 90 minutes to two hours, and there is no magic hocus-pocus, for decades (think about all the research and clinical studies, ooh, ahh – B.S.) that will make them perform any differently, or magically. The maximum amount of SPF that has some research behind it’s most likely false label is SPF 50, so spare yourself the couple extra dollars by leaving the SPF60+++’s on the shelf. More to come about SPF ingredients and chemical vs physical ingredients.

Wishing you healthy skin,

Melissa