News Coverage
What's Stressful Now? Sunscreen.
Published July 24, 2008
Saturday was a great beach day, wasn't it? Well, that's what I heard. Sunscreening my family took so long that by the time we got to the shore all the nonresident parking spots were gone. Which was a shame, because we were wearing close to 150 SPF. Each. No, I didn't score a tube of the good stuff from Canada. I made it myself, layering a cream with an SPF of 85 on top of a stick promising an SPF of 30, and then, just to be safe, I shellacked the concoction with an SPF 30 spray.
I'm suffering from a condition that's becoming increasingly common: sunscreen stress. It's a cluster of anxieties centering on that evil ball of gas in the sky and its proper blocking. The tension increased earlier this month, when the nonprofit Environmental Working Group released a survey showing four out of five brand-name sunscreens insufficiently protect skin from the sun's harmful rays or contain chemicals that are potentially harmful. Less than two weeks later, federal health officials reported in the Journal of Investigative Dermatology that melanoma rates among young women have risen 50 percent since the 1980s.
Between the serious health concerns and the superficial wrinkle worries, it's enough to make a person spend the summer indoors. Oh, but that's probably not healthy, either. You might not get enough Vitamin D, and recently researchers have found that the nutrient may go beyond building strong bones to reduce the risk of certain cancers, heart disease, and arthritis, according to a report in the July 14 Mayo Clinic Women's HealthSource.
Sun protection: You're burned if you do, burned if you don't.
"I worry that I'll get skin cancer if I don't wear sunscreen," said Marni Glovinsky, 25, of Brookline, "but if I do wear it, I worry that the chemicals will give me some other kind of cancer." Don't get her started on age spots. "It's very stressful. Sometimes I'm almost to the T and I'll realize I forgot to put it on and I'll panic."
Other people fear they're using the wrong brand, or that they're not applying enough, and in that they're probably right. You're supposed to slather on almost a golf ball's worth, not apply a demure coating. In my case, I simply can't believe the stuff works for as long as the manufacturers claim, so if I'm out for more than 15 minutes, even with my homemade SPF 150 on, I start hearing the tick-tick-tick of the UV rays piercing my flesh.
Even dermatologists suffer from sunscreen stress. Dr. Alexa Kimball, vice chairman of the department of dermatology at Massachusetts General Hospital, says she gets "anxious" if she and her children aren't properly screened. "I'm aware that damage is being done," she says. This time of year, she adds, half her patients ask sunscreen questions.
Who can blame them? Sunscreen has gotten very "complicated," notes Kit Yarrow, consumer psychologist at Golden Gate University in San Francisco. With the huge range of SPFs, or "sun protection factors," available, the UVA and UVB issues, and concerns over reapplication schedules, she said, "suddenly you have to do algebra."
(Speaking of math, that 150 SPF I calculated on my non-beach Saturday was wrong. When layering sunscreen, you don't add, you average. "You're diluting the more powerful cream," Dr. Kimball explains.)
Sunscreen sales in the United States are predicted to top $1 billion this year, according to Kline & Co., a Little Falls, N.J.-based market research firm, but no one knows how much protection you're buying yourself. If I spend a lost weekend on the Cape wearing no sunscreen whatsoever, how much cosmetic damage will I do? Will I look 65 when I'm 62? "We have no way of quantifying," Dr. Kimball says. But this she does know: "It takes a minimal exposure to set off the enzymes that degrade some of your collagen and your elastin. Even 10 to 15 minutes can set things off."
It's no wonder people are embracing extreme measures, especially those who spend thousands on cosmetic procedures to erase sun damage. "I have clients who would carry parasols if they could," reports Manhattan plastic surgery consultant Wendy Lewis.
But hey, maybe all this stress isn't our fault. I blame the Food and Drug Administration. The agency has yet to issue updated labeling regulations. I'm sure once the new information is on the sunscreen bottles, we'll all cover ourselves appropriately. After all, look how helpful nutrition labeling has been in reducing the nation's obesity epidemic.
