IT IS NOT ABOUT BEING TRENDY, IT IS ABOUT BEING AWARE.

Crucial topics worth of notice

by Larysa Kozak

Despite the active promotion of sunscreen and its benefits, the majority remains deluded and fall for a range of disbelieves concerning SPF and its “harm”.

Background

According to the British Cancer Charity Centre, skin cancer has been one of the most prevalent cases for the past few years and the number of affected is swelling uncontrollably. There are several reasons for that including global warming and the protective ozone layer that has weakened gradually since the 1980s. Given this, we are exposed to an even larger amount of direct sunlight than previous generations. Therefore, the formation of sun-protective habits is vital for our well-being. Unfortunately, a substantial number of people still believe in some spurious narratives for not applying SPF and do not intend to follow dermatologists’ recommendations.

In this article, we attempt to highlight the most common reasons regarding indifference towards skincare and explain why they are untrue.

1# SPF as an anti-age product

Sadly, a lot of people don’t understand the primary goal of SPF use. Due to the massive popularization of sunscreen as an anti-age product, people mistakenly view it as another marketing ploy. They fear that unscrupulous entrepreneurs simply seek ways to make money from them, which is partially true, as a lot of skincare brands primarily promoted SPF as an anti-ageing magic pill. Therefore, scientists struggle to articulate the importance of SPF as a cancer prevention product, rather than anti-ageing cream. The truth is ultraviolet radiation does influence our skin which potentially leads to wrinkles and skin roughnesses and SPF may decelerate this process as it protects us from the UV rays. However, viewing SPF as a substance that may rejuvenate you is utopian.

2#The deficit of vitamin D

Another common misbelief that induces people not to apply sunscreen daily is the claim that SPF inhibits vitamin D. The truth is, however, no matter how much sunscreen you apply, your skin will still experience some sun exposure. Moreover, only 10 minutes in the sun is enough to resupply the amount of Vitamin D your body needs.

3# The lack of cancer awareness

According to a recent questionnaire arranged by the British Cancer Charity Centre, approximately 30% of people rarely use or don’t use sunscreen at all. Additionally, the same number of them were not aware that there are a lot of unbiased surveys constituting the link between skin cancer and daily exposure to sunlight. The absence of knowledge, consequently, resulted in ignorance of SPF use and later prompted skin cancer. One of the reasons why skincare is hard to promote is because skin cancer takes so long to turn up. On average, even if some neglect the daily appliance of sunscreen, they are bound to face the consequences at least in their early 60s. Besides, daily usage of SPF does not provide an immediate effect which does not encourage people to use it.

4# Gender stereotypes

As gender preconceptions regarding which behaviour patterns males and females should follow are far from fading away, no wonder a lot of people attempt to correspond to them in order to secure social approval. Among those common stereotypes, there is also the perception of excessive self-care as an exclusively female feature, including daily usage of SPF. In view of this, men prefer not using SPF or using it secretly in order not to be falsely accused of being “too feminine”.

To summarize, there are a lot of reasons why people make a firm decision to avoid sunscreen. The majority of them emerged as a result of different stereotypes and false claims of SPF being either useless or even dangerous. It is high time we debunk those myths as we experience a lot of sunlight daily, more even than our ancestors, which means we have to take good care of our skin in order to prevent some scary consequences.