Look familiar? Perhaps these look similar to the bottles you have on your counter or in your cabinet. These are the WORST to apply in the summertime. Why? Bath & Body is a big alcohol-adding culprit- in some cases over 50%. Alcohol is not a skin-benefitting ingredient by any means, quite the opposite. It is known as ” a photo-sensitizing ingredient “. Simply put it makes your skin sensitive to the sun. Do you have a lot of ‘freckling’ or ‘wrinkling’ on the chest, neck, and shoulders? READ THIS.

At first I was going to recommend avoiding only perfume and body sprays, but then I recalled that fragranced lotions contain nearly identical ingredients which puts them in the same sensitizing boat as those body sprays! What does sensitizing actually mean? Well,the sun is especially attracted to those spots of skin that have that alcohol ingredient sprayed on them and it will lead to further skin damage, these conditions being the most common: wrinkling, fine lines, freckling, mottling. Think of spraying your hair or your body spray while you are wearing a tank top. Today was 95 degrees outside – I pulled my hair up, sprayed my hair with my hair spray and realized in addition to my hair, I also sprayed my face, shoulders, chest, and neck. I immediately wiped off those areas with a wet wash cloth. THEN I applied SPF 30 sunscreen. I recommend you do the SAME. If I hadn’t removed the chemically-infused spray, I would have developed even (more than I already have now) splotches and freckles and tiny brown dots on my skin.

I know that I cannot tell you to avoid all of your lotions, sprays, and perfumes; and guys, your cologne. But if you will compromise with me and avoid lotions, sprays or perfumes containing alcohol in the first five to seven ingredients on your product label, (during, those hot summer days) you will be doing your skin a great service.

Even toned, un-freckled skin is associated with youthful and healthy skin. Take my advice and obtain healther, younger looking skin by, if not avoiding those ‘artificially fragranced’ lotions and sprays, at least by wiping the skin off by using a wet cloth to those sprayed areas and by following that with the application of an SPF 30 moisturizer, daily.

As a recap:

1. Avoid fragranced, alcohol infused sprays, lotions, perfumes and colognes in the summertime.

2. If the thought of the first step is prompting you to breathe repeatedly into a paper bag, be sure to wipe off the additionally sprayed areas of skin using a wet wash cloth after using your body spray or hair spray. Still tempted to apply that lotion? I can’t help you.

3. Cover exposed areas of the skin when applying hair spray.

4. Apply SPF 30 to all exposed areas of skin prior to going outside (to avoid further skin damage from UV rays). See my SPF article for more information on this topic.

-Wishing you healthy skin,

Melissa Armstrong,
Licensed Esthetician & Skincare Educator