Don’t Get Burned by Your Sunscreen: Tips for Sun Protection
Small victory: he’s wearing a hat!
A couple years ago I was walking through town with one of my boys when a complete stranger exclaimed, “Oh, my, you’re sunburned!”
The concerned individual was referring to my son, whose face looked rather like a strawberry, red with his brown freckles like berry seeds punctuating his nose and cheeks. My guilt resurfaced, a day after my son’s sun-soaked adventure. Even though I had done my best to slather my son with sunscreen, he, like every time before, wiped his face immediately to remove the offensive gooey cream he hates so much, and keeping a hat on him is akin to bringing two repelling magnets together.
In short, much as my husband and I try to keep our kids protected from the sun, we aren’t always successful. Like, for instance, our family’s recent trip to the beach for spring break.
Especially like our recent trip to the beach.
Last summer I wrote two blog posts about sunscreen safety, with information dispelling the myths of chemically-based sunscreen (they are ok to use, really) and including an update on a controversy regarding a popular “natural” sunscreen from the Honest Company. I had some feedback from readers on the sunscreens they use and we decided to try a couple ourselves. I tried selectively, however…nothing new-fangled like a powder-based sunscreen (been there, done that, won’t do it again…).
One new sunscreen brand we tried was Alba Botanica, which has several varieties to choose from. I love the sport version, SPF 45, for my face when I run, so I thought we would try the Hawaiian version for our trip. The label indicated all the things important in a sunscreen: “spf 30,” “broad spectrum,” “water resistant (80 minutes)” and “recommended-Skin Cancer Foundation.” I mean, (beach blanket) bingo, perfect for a trip to the beach and body surfing in the, uh, surf. And it smelled awesome.
Contains an alphabet soup of active ingredients, most of them chemically-based, plus 1.0% titanium dioxide.
I happily slathered my kids and myself with this Hawaiian magic and we, literally, dove in. Played in the water, Rented a paddle board for a bit. Saw sea turtles! And then,
Life wasn’t so awesome.
We got burned. Not terribly. We were under water part of the time and that helped protect us some. But darn it all, my daughter, sensitive as her skin already is…got kinda red. Not like a strawberry but more like a shrimp. And somehow, the insult activated her mild asthma so she started in with her croupy-sounding cough.
Damn.
Not the way to spend a week’s tropical vacation. I don’t think the sunscreen was as “water resistant” as the bottle indicated. My husband, who used his old reliable sporty-water-resistant brand (Coppertone Sport High Performance, SPF 30), and is a fair-skinned redhead to boot, didn’t get burned at all.
Hmmm.
I think if you put “Hawaiian” on a sunscreen label, that product better darn well be bulletproof. Oh, and definitely sun proof.
Because the next day, deciding the Alba wasn’t very good for water play, I put it only on myself…as I stayed beachside. And as luck would have it, I started to get red again.
So the Alba Hawaiian went in the trash. I ended up tossing four bottles of the stuff because I didn’t trust it. That’s expensive garbage, let me tell you.
But then there was the “stick” product my mother-in-law recommended:
Contains fewer active ingredients: octisalate 5.0%, octinoxate 7.5% and zinc oxide 14.5%.
Now “clear zinc” isn’t as effective as the truly pasty white zinc (zinc as a sunscreen is supposed to deflect the sun’s rays and you know you’ve put on enough when you look like a mime). But when combined with a couple chemical sunscreens, it worked great, and we only looked a little sickly-white. This was especially great for my sunscreen-resistant son, who tolerated the solid stick applied to his face. (We decided part of the reason he hates regular sunscreen is he sweats a lot and the creamy sunscreen runs in his eyes. If you’ve ever experienced this yourself, you know how awful it is.)
Now I’m a big fan of chemical sunscreens. Despite some of the media reports out there, these sunscreens are safe, chemically-speaking. However, based on past and current experience, I think it is also safe to say that not all chemical sunscreens are created equal. Even though I read the product labels and made sure the sunscreens I purchased would be appropriate for our family’s activities…we still got burned. Do different people respond differently to different sunscreen products? Maybe. It’s certainly possible. But how can we know? We can’t. But there are things we can do to minimize the accidental sunburn:
Hats and rash guards. The latter preferably of the long-sleeved variety. And hats with a chin strap (so they don’t get lost), worn even in the water. I’d rather my kids look a little dorky now than pay later with sun-related skin problems.
Reapply sunscreen much sooner than the bottle suggests. 80 minutes of water resistance is commonly seen on sunscreen labels. But go 60, or even 45, and then reapply. But here’s the challenge: getting the kids out of the water and their skin dry enough so the fresh sunscreen can be absorbed (and therefore effective), especially with dripping wet swimsuits. So one word: treats. Bribe with special treats. Kids are playing hard, they are on vacation, so make a dietary exception. Eating something out of the normal healthy eating plan won’t hurt them. But a bad sunburn will.
Scrutinize, and re-scrutinize sunscreen labels. Sometimes you get a bad product and that you can’t predict. So do what you can to make sure you have a good sunscreen in the beach bag. Make sure the label explicitly says that the product is water resistant and UVA/UVB broad spectrum. Double check the expiration date and toss anything close to or past its prime. Don’t take a chance.
And have fun!
