health SKINTONE

In 2008, the Skin Cancer Foundation launched a groundbreaking public service message, smartly entitled “Go With Your Own Glow,” to encourage women (and men, for that matter) to celebrate and protect their natural skin tone. The foundation wants sun lovers of all ages to realize the following: Tanning is neither fashionable nor flattering, and is more or less obsolete as a lifestyle. Could this be the understatement of the summer?

Sun damage isn’t something that happens overnight from one bad burn. It’s cumulative. So, all those long afternoons at the height of the sun’s heat, slathering your skin in baby oil by the pool, or carelessly eschewing sunscreen on the beach in your twenties add up—or just forgetting to re-apply; each of these acts is one of health and beauty self-sabotage. “It’s that first, early overexposure until now that’s the problem,” says Dr. Doris Day, a New York City dermatologist and author of Forget the Facelift . “When I treat a woman in her sixties with wrinkles and brown spots who says, ‘I’m never in the sun,’ I say, ‘Well, maybe you’re not anymore—this damage is from 20 or 30 years ago.’”

But that’s not all. Every time you go out in the sun without applying an SPF product of at least 15 in winter and 30 in summer (and not just to your face, but all exposed skin, be it hands, arms, neck, shoulders, or shins) and taking other proper precautions, like wearing a hat or walking on the shady side of the street, you’re adding to that damage.

“Most sun exposure is incidental, so contrary to what people think it doesn’t just happen during the summertime and on the beach,” says Hale. “Most is from the act of daily living.” That’s right—be it an outdoor break from the office on your lunch hour, a jog around the park, a walk with the family on a weekend afternoon, or simply driving in your car during the daytime, not applying products with UV protection is speeding up the aging process and piling on to the wrinkles, sun spots, dullness, and sagging that sun damage can cause. “The number one antiaging secret is sunscreen. Before you spend money on peptides and stem-cell treatments, think about it,” Hale continues. “I won’t even perform these procedures until a patient commits to using daily sunscreen because if you keep baking in the sun, it’s like stopping a moving train.”

Some of Dr. Hale’s patients argue that they need the sun exposure to adjust a deficiency in vitamin D. However, she says, this is simply untrue. If you’re worried about not getting enough vitamin D in your day-to-day activities, exposing your skin to that burning orb in the sky isn’t going to make much of a difference. “That’s just plain old false,” says Farah Ahmed, chair of the Personal Care Products Council sunscreen committee in Washington, D.C. “To the extent that someone is deficient, you should get vitamin D through your diet. The American Academy of Dermatologists all agree: UV rays are cancer causing. It’s irrefutable science.”

“The only way to ensure 100 percent blockage is to be in a dark room. When it’s cloudy or it’s the middle of winter, UV rays still come through, and penetrate windows as well, and that can cause damage to the skin over the years,” says Ahmed. “There’s a compelling photo of a truck driver in his sixties who’s been on the road for 30-plus years. The left side of his face looks 20 years older than the right because of sun exposure when driving.”

And that’s merely the vanity factor of unprotected sun exposure. The real danger is in the DNA damage.

Skin cancer occurs when dangerous ultra-violet radiation from the sun or a tanning bed (not that you should be using such archaic instruments of skin torture!) causes DNA cellular damage that can’t quite repair itself, and also kicks off a maelstrom of mutations, in which the damaged skin cells multiply rapidly, forming malignant tumors. “We know that up to 90 percent of skin cancer is due to UV exposure, and I’d say at this point it’s the number one diagnosed cancer in the U.S. now—more than lung, prostate, breast, and colon combined,” Hale continues. “Fortunately, many of these cases are curable when detected early.”

With such an arsenal of scientific proof, it seems high time for that notion of a healthy tan to become a historical flash-in-the-pan footnote. And not a UV ray too soon. “We want protecting your skin to be as instinctive as wearing a seatbelt,” says Ahmed. “Burns we recognize and associate with damage, but tanning is in fact damage to your skin. Regardless of your skin color.”

Ahmed brings up an important point: It’s not just the extremely fair who are susceptible to damage from the sun; all skin colors need protection and care. “Sun damage is an equal-opportunity offender. Skin damage occurs in skin of all colors,” she continues. “The American Academy of Dermatologists and the Skin Cancer Foundation have each been vocal about the fact that sun protection is important for all ethnicities, regardless of skin tone. When it comes to beauty and age perception, it’s not the color of your skin, it’s the evenness and luminosity of your skin tone. And that’s shown to be true around the globe.”

Once you learn to be comfortable with your natural tone, be it the palest of them all or ebony as evening, you’ll find that inner glow will shine on the outside, too. Part of the Skin Cancer Foundation’s campaign has been to loop in well-known, visible celebrities to help get the message out, like style tastemaker Simon Doonan, who wisely points out cross-cultural examples of high-profile women with enviable skin in an interview on their website: “Tilda Swinton is pale and interesting. Michelle Obama is luscious and well-moisturized. Lucy Liu is a flawless porcelain doll.” Each perfect examples of stunning, successful women who are obviously comfortable in their own skin.

“Your skin is a powerful and accurate reflector of your inner health, both mentally and physically,” says Dr. Day. “As a dermatologist, I consider myself a medical detective and a doctor of self-esteem. When you feel your best, you look your best, and that has a powerful impact on your whole being.”

The good news is that it’s not too late to coax that glow from your body’s largest organ, and reduce your risk of skin cancer to boot. In Australia, the skin-cancer capital of the world, a decade-long study was conducted on 1,600 adults ages 25 to 65, with half told to go about their usual daily habits, using or not using sunscreen; the other half was to follow a strict and careful regimen of appropriate daily sunscreen application. The latter group was found to have an overwhelming 73 percent reduction in invasive melanomas, not to mention a reduction in brown spots and other signs of aging.

“People think, ‘It’s too late! The damage is done!’ But it’s not too late. It’s an ongoing process,” says Hale. And it’s become easier and easier to adapt SPF application into an otherwise healthy daily skin regimen. Of course, if you plan to hit the beach or the pool, applying and re-applying sunscreen often and from head to toe is absolutely vital, as is wearing a hat, seeking shade, covering up when you can, and avoiding the sun during the hottest points of the late morning and early to mid-afternoon—all easy enough regimens to adapt. Even easier, though, is finding great products to boost your UV beauty shield all the time. It’s actually a lot harder to find stores and cosmetic counters that don’t offer a bevy of beauty products with a decent level of SPF these days, from lipstick to powder to foundation. And if you somehow had the notion that those products weren’t as strong as, say, the sunscreen in your beach tote, take joy—they are.

“That SPF 15 in your foundation is the same as what’s in a beach product,” says Ahmed. “It’s no different. Beauty products are required to go through the same rigors of testing and labeling. They provide serious health benefits.”

Which products are the best? According to Ahmed, whichever one you put on every day. “I think it’s important to have confidence in your own skin color and take an interest in skin health and what it means to protect yourself from any damage. In the end, prevention is the best medicine.” l

It’s been over two decades since founder Maureen Kelly began her entrepreneurial journey from her one-bedroom New York City apartment. Without a formal business background or beauty industry expertise, building a multimillion dollar cosmetics company from the ground up was initially based on hopes and dreams with a six-figure debt to match.

Determined to make her mark, after several failed attempts, one yes changed the course of her destiny as those hopes and dreams quickly turned into reality, and there was no turning back! Tarte cosmetics went from being virtually unknown to appearing in top magazines and exclusively debuting at Henri Bendel in 2000—a full-circle moment and a dream come true. As an innovative force in the cosmetics industry, Kelly is still involved in the day-today operations alongside her all-women-led C-Suite team, ideating ideas and creative concepts. With the brand’s continued success, paying it forward is nonnegotiable. The mom of two has her sights set on helping others achieve their entrepreneurial endeavors providing mentorship, opportunities, and funding, all while continuing to grow her beauty empire. NEW YOU spoke with the founder and CEO about building confidence in the face of adversity, advice for aspiring businesswomen, and what’s next on her career bucket list. Read on for more.

NEW YOU: What made you become an entrepreneur and enter the cosmetics industry?

Maureen Kelly: I wanted to start a makeup company because I am one of seven children, and my mom is from Ireland. Because of this, she always created natural antidotes for us. If my sisters and I had a pimple or a blemish, she would mix aloe with turmeric. We never bought our products from the store like other teenage girls. Fast forward to when I got older, and I could buy my products or go to the makeup counter and get my makeup done; I would flip over the box, unable to pronounce one ingredient, and I realized they were full of very unhealthy ingredients. My mom also grew up on a farm in Ireland, so we had a lot of animals when I was growing up. It made me sad that back then, mostly all cosmetic companies were tested on animals. So I wanted to create a cruelty-free makeup brand formulated with healthy ingredients.

NY: Experiencing rejection as an entrepreneur is inevitable. What advice do you have for building confidence in the face of adversity?

MK: It’s imperative not to let imposter syndrome hold you back nowadays. That is common, and even I am guilty of it. You want to ensure you keep yourself from falling into it. Believing in yourself is so important. A big ego doesn’t have to be a bad thing. I am humble, but I feel very confident in who I am and what I’m doing, and you should too.

NY: You’ve already accomplished so much. What are some of your other aspirations on your career bucket list?

MK: I feel fortunate to have accomplished what I have to this day. My Northstar is definitely lifting up other women. That is what drives me. I started a non-profit six years ago called Heart to Tarte, and a big part of what I do is giving back. It’s been a big part of my DNA since day one. In the early days, when we weren’t making enough money, we couldn’t afford to give back. Back then, instead of giving money, we used to provide products to homeless women’s shelters. Fast forward, we can donate money, and now we do some incredible initiatives! We give back to teachers by clearing their lists, and we’ve cleared over a thousand teachers’ lists. We also help many female entrepreneurs in assisting them in starting companies.

NY: Has this been the most rewarding part of your career so far?

MK: The most rewarding part of my career so far is definitely creating the non-profit Heart to Tarte because we’ve been able to do so many things within it, such as giving back to the teachers. We have our Ship Your Future Small Business Awards, where we have been able to give back and help amazing female founders and entrepreneurs start their businesses.

I also have an all-female C-suite, which is very unusual in the cosmetics industry. They help mentor young women in college, helping teach them how to craft their LinkedIn pages, resumes, and things like that. Lifting up women makes me so happy and is something I am most proud of.

NY: What would you say to another woman looking to start her own company in 2023?

MK: I would say to a woman who is starting or wants to start her own company in 2023 to go for it and do it inch by inch, day by day. When I look back and think about what I did, I had no experience and no money. I started on credit cards and a vision board. I didn’t even know how to do an Excel spreadsheet at the time! I was actually cutting things out of magazines and putting them on my vision board. For me, that was my Excel spreadsheet because I didn’t have a business background, and I didn’t have experience in this industry. So if I can do it, you can do it.

NY: You speak to a lot of your successes. However, was there ever a moment in your career where you wanted to give up, but you had to push through and garner that resilience spirit?

MK: Yes, early on, when I had all of the cosmetics created, I was calling Henri Bendel, Barneys, and Bergdorf Goodman to try to get someone to launch the makeup. No one was calling me back, and I left at least four or five messages. Then I started to have some real panic set in that I was going out of business before I even began.

I left a final message, and it was a seventh message for Henri Bendel saying I’m about to launch at Bergdorf Goodman. It was a little white lie, and I do feel bad about that to this day. But lo and behold, she called me back and allowed me to come in and show my products. I knew if I could show her the products, she would love them. And she did!

BEAUTY EXPERIMENT