Sunscreen Update!

A word about sunscreen...again.

So you all know what an SPF nut I am. Protecting my face and Leather Bib from further sun damage is a daily task I began too late. And I have my fave sunscreens that I have told you about already. I even remember looking askance at a particularly leathery older actor whose response when I offered him sunscreen was "I don't put that poison on my face. It gives you cancer." This was several weeks after I had just had a pre-cancerous freckle-gone-awry removed from my very un-tan lower back.

But I have been catching wind of research that calls out some nefarious ingredients in the vast majority of sunscreens on the market. Namely oxybenzone, a possible hormone disrupting compound that enters your bloodstream, and a form of Vitamin A called retinyl palmitate that the FDA is testing as a photocarcinogen. SCARY. Something to do with "they protect you from sun-burning UVB rays but allow or even aid UVA radiation".

There might also be some SPF # shenanigans going on as well. Specifically that companies are lulling us into a false sense of sun-protection with their uber-high SPF numbers but what they don't say is that you need to apply a quarter of the bottle to achieve SPF 100. The amount we are probably putting on is giving us an SPF of about 3.2. My rule of thumb is that nothing protects past 15 anyway if you are out in the sun.

So, as I am neither scientist nor doctor, I will not attest to the supreme legitimacy of this info. But CLICK HERE for the link to the Environmental Working Group website that scared the pants off me. There are also some very legitimate rebuttals from scientists at Memorial Sloan Kettering and reported in the Huffington Post. I say look at both sides of the story and decide for yourself.