Skintimit protection

As I sit and write this, I see a mom hunched down walking very quickly alongside her child, rubbing his arm. My wife and I now do this on a daily basis to our own child, and I recognize the behavior as applying sunscreen to little ones.

This ritual has really developed in my family, from running to catch up with Marley, to begging and pleading with her to let us put it on, to now, finally, acceptance.

It begins with a spray down of sunscreen with 60 SPF and a gentler lotion for her face; if we feel like we missed an area we use another lotion to back up the spray. When we are done, it seems like she has a coat of armor protecting her from the harmful effects of the sun.

But what’s the science behind sunscreen?

First, a little about skin: It is the largest organ in our body and can cover an average 22 square feet and weigh 8 pounds.We are going to discuss two main parts of the skin.

The layered outer part that protects us from the elements is called the epidermis. The top layer of the epidermis is dead cells while the lower layer is where new cells are made. Amazingly every minute of the day we lose about 30,000 to 40,000 dead skin cells off the surface of our skin.

The dermis is underneath the epidermis and contains blood vessels and nerve endings to help regulate temperature and detect pain, like sunburn.

The pink to reddish hue we see after too much sun is blood rushing from our capillaries to help repair the damaged cells. The pain we feel is because we have damaged our skin. In some instances people can even develop blistering.

As we move along further into spring and summer, we can spend more and more time in the sun without harming our skin. This is because our skin contains melanin, which is like our body’s natural sunscreen. As we get more exposure to sunlight, we produce more melanin, which helps absorb the harmful UV rays.

If we do not have much melanin to begin with, we need to use more sunscreen. The less melanin, the higher the SPF we need to apply. For example, let’s say that on the first really nice day of the season I forget to put sunscreen on and I burn in the first 15 minutes I am outside. Had I put on SPF 10, I would have been able to stay in the sun for 150 minutes.

We know it is important to put sunscreen on to prevent sunburns, but the biggest benefit to putting on sunscreen is the prevention of skin cancer.

From what I’ve read, it takes only two severe sunburns to significantly increase susceptibility to skin cancer later in life.

The next time you see someone doing the sunscreen shuffle, let it serve as a reminder for you and your family to reapply your own sunscreen.