Year after year, new research and technologies unveil the latest findings related to sunscreen use and UV effects. Physicians, government regulators, manufacturers, and environmental groups all weigh in on the latest sunscreen debate. Yet with so much information, consumers are left with conflicting viewpoints and more questions than answers. Should we avoid the sun or do we need sun exposure? Is there a safe limit? Is sunscreen safe? How does the government regulate sunscreen and how does that affect me? Should we tan? Is there such thing as a safe tan? How much sunscreen should we use? What kind? When should we apply? How often? Can we put sunscreen on babies? Does sunscreen expire? Should we avoid sun exposure at certain times of the day? Do UV rays cause skin cancer? Or is it the sunscreen that causes cancer?

How did sun safety and consequently, sunscreen use get so complicated? And does it need to be? My answer is no! In this guide, I explain how to form sun awareness habits and why it is the more practical approach. Sunscreen use is just one part of the equation; healthy sun protection is not just about the sunscreen and choosing the safest products available on the market. This is not a “Secret to Sun Safety Revealed” guide. What I present is no secret and nothing new. Common sense sun awareness is how your grandparents and people throughout the world today cope with sun exposure in the absence of sunscreen. I am simply pointing out how we got derailed from our original intentions and how to get back on track – the practical way.

But given how much our modern lifestyles have changed, I don’t deny that we need to use sunscreen. Again, if you have been following my blog, you will know that I think that the best sunscreen is a conventional zinc oxide based formulation, homemade or a generic zinc oxide ointment. None of the products currently marketed as sunscreens are safer and cheaper than your ordinary zinc cream, the same kind that was used decades ago before the marketing of “clear sunscreens” became the norm. To convince you, I provide in-depth information on sunscreen ingredients including the chemicals and nano-technology. I also point out the flaws in sunscreen regulations and testing and why we should still simply rely on common sense sun awareness. Read my post on UVB and UVA testing for some of the details.

Common Sense Sun Care and Homemade Sunscreens – Click here to purchase and automatically download the PDF. $18.

Finally, if you want the most affordable and highest quality sunscreen (and skin care for that matter), your best bet is to make it yourself. In this guide, I show you detailed step-by-step instructions for making all kinds of sunscreen to cover yourself from head to toe. The recipes are for sunscreen bases: there is no ’start with a cream base’. They are presented in convenient percentages by weight so English and metric users alike can readily use the recipes. I also talk about the inactive ingredients I use and what they do (there are only 14!) in case you want to formulate your own sunscreen.

Just so you know what’s in this guide, here’s the Table of Contents:

Why did I put together this guide? For the same reason I started the skin care section of this blog. I care about quality of life – for myself, my family, my community, and our environment. Quality of life is not about finding and affording the best or most ecologically-friendly products on the market. With respect to skin care, I want to show people why homemade is best and how easy it is. For many people, homemade skin care is a mystery. But once you begin to think about it in the same light as home-cooking, it becomes less foreign. And I am here to help demystify the whole process. So please support my efforts. Aside from purchasing this convenient downloadable PDF guide on sun care, any ingredients you purchase from Mountain Rose Herbs through my site sends a small referral fee my way at no extra cost to you.

Common Sense Sun Care and Homemade Sunscreens – Click here to purchase and automatically download the PDF. $18.

Disclaimer:
The content herein is for educational and information purposes only. It is in no way intended to be used as a substitute for professional advice or treatment. You expressly agree that your use of this information is at your sole risk.

I am very close to finishing my sunscreen e-report. I apologize for the delay. Summer, holidays, family, you get the idea. But mainly, I don’t want to put out a half-hearted attempt.

Related articles:
UVB and sunburn
UVA protection
Sunscreen series

UVA rays penetrate deeper into the skin layer than UVB rays. Excess exposure to UVA rays may cause premature skin aging, wrinkling, and cell damage and to a lesser degree than UVB rays, damage to the epidermis (redness and sunburn). However, there are many other factors that cause cell damage. With respect to premature aging, other risks beside sun overexposure are diet, smoking, environmental pollutants, stress, and lack of sleep. Likewise, factors such as family history and genetics, skin type, and weakened immune system also contribute to skin cancer. Getting sunburned does damage the skin and increase your risk for both skin cancer and photo-aging. Sunscreen does prevent sunburn. But sunscreen use alone does not help prevent the effects of cell damage.

Even the FDA finds that there are not enough data to support these claims – “FDA has tentatively concluded that the available evidence fails to show that sunscreen use alone helps prevent skin cancer or premature skin aging. Thus, the antiaging, skin cancer, and sun damage claims…would be false or misleading due to lack of sufficient data in support of these claims.” However, sunscreen use as part of a comprehensive sun protection program that includes limiting sun exposure and wearing protective clothing for example will reduce your risk of cellular damage. To address these issues, the FDA is proposing a required “sun alert” statement in the Warnings section of the label to read something like this: ‘UV exposure from the sun increases the risk of skin cancer, premature skin aging, and other skin damage. It is important to decrease UV exposure by limiting time in the sun, wearing protective clothing, and using a sunscreen.’

There are just as many variances and discord with UVA testing as there are with UVB testing. Currently, there is no consensus on the best method for UVA testing. Three methods are being considered: the Persistent Pigment Darkening (PPD) test, the Protection Factor in UVA (PFA) test, and the Critical Wavelength test. Both the PPD and PFA are in vivo methods performed on live organisms. They are similar to the SPF testing in that they are based on erythema and pigment color changes. In the Critical Wavelength test, a 1 mg/cm2 thin film of the sunscreen is exposed to UV substrate spectrophotometry. It is an in vitro method of determining the critical wavelength where 90% absorption occurs over the integral from 290 to 400 nm.

UVA protection assessment, in vivo or in vitro, is beyond the scope of a home based analysis. However, existing UVA testing and research of commercially prepared sunscreen and zinc oxide manufacturers can serve as a benchmark. For micronized zinc oxide, BASF which manufactures Z-Cote® and Kobo Products Inc both show that even just 5% of their various grades of micronized ZnO give UVB and UVA coverage up to 380 nm.

To my knowledge, there are no current analysis of conventional zinc oxide as a sunscreen as it is not currently marketed as such. But that does not mean it is not an effective UVA/UVB protector. Back when zinc oxide was more popular, sunscreen was used to prevent sunburn, not provide UVA protection. Conventional zinc oxide does block some UVA rays but exactly how much I do not know. However, its protection is relative straightforward: the more opaque and higher the concentration, the more UV protection.

Update! Proof that regular zinc oxide blocks UVB/UVA rays

Not having uva testing data with conventional zinc oxide is not a concern to me. As I explained earlier, limiting UVA exposure is just one of many ways to reduce the risk of cellular damage. To combat premature aging and skin cancer, you are better off leading a healthy lifestyle that includes, for example, eating natural foods high in antioxidants.

To answer, let us look at what SPF means and how the ever-disputed testing is done. All quotes in this section are taken directly from the 1999 or 2007 FDA sunscreen OTC monograph.

To determine an SPF rating for UVB protection (and hence, sunburn), the FDA requirement (1999 monograph) is to perform an in vivo test (clinical test on human subjects). An even 2 mg/cm² is applied on the back of a human volunteer; a series of five different dosage of UV radiation is emitted to five subsite on the test site; after a specified amount of time, an examiner visually inspects the test site to evaluate the UV dosage that produced skin redness or MED – minimal erythema dose defined as the “quantity of erythema-effective energy (expressed as Joules per square meter) required to produce the first perceptible, redness reaction with clearly defined borders”. The ratio of the MED between the protected and unprotected skin is used to calculate the SPF.

Accurately determining SPF is a known problem. For example, “…studies suggest that, in practice, consumers may apply amounts of sunscreen below the density of 2 mg/cm², which is the amount of product required for the SPF determination …that consumers may apply as little as 0.5 to 1.0 mg/cm².” The FDA’s response is to keep the 2 mg/cm² but modify the application directions on the sunscreen product label “to reduce the likelihood of underapplication.” The FDA also “agrees that SPF values do not reflect exact levels of sunburn protection that consumers receive under actual use conditions. The required SPF test is a clinical test conducted with strict control over factors such as product application density. However, under actual use conditions, these factors are not controlled and vary greatly.” Furthermore, the current test method uses a standardized sunscreen SPF 4 as the control formulation. The likelihood of inaccuracies increase with increasing SPF values being tested due to its deviation from the controlled SPF 4 standard. “Better assurance of an accurate SPF value is obtained by using a standard that is closer in SPF value to the sunscreen product being tested.” The FDA has revised the SPF testing in the proposed 2007 monograph to require sunscreens with SPF above 15 to use a standardized sunscreen SPF 15 as the control formulation instead of the SPF 4.

Though the FDA has proposed changes that would improve SPF testing, it still does not change the fact the testing is done under a controlled environment that hardly mirrors real world situation. Also, the examiner that evaluates the MED is a human prone to human errors and variance and most likely not the same person evaluating for all the sunscreen brands. Nonetheless, SPF numbers are still useful when comparing sunscreen products especially from the same brand (assuming the testing methods for different SPF values have little variance). A higher SPF product does give more sunburn protection. “Although SPF values do not convey actual levels of sunburn protection, when comparing multiple sunscreen products, SPF values enable consumers to determine which products provide the most sunburn protection. For example, FDA believes most consumers would correctly identify an SPF 20 product as providing more sunburn protection than an SPF 10 product.”

It is a common misconception that SPF is only related to the time of solar exposure – that if it normally takes one hour for your unprotected skin to burn, using an SPF of 10 means you get 10 hours of protection before sunburn occurs. SPF measures the amount of solar energy required to produce a sunburn; time is just one factor. Other factors affecting solar energy intensity are time of the day, seasons, weather conditions, and geographic locations. Many of these factors are also interrelated resulting in a very uneven distribution of solar radiation throughout the world. Your skin type and different parts of your body also determine your susceptibility to sunburn. Using an SPF 20 vs. an SPF 10 sunscreen does not mean you are twice as protected, that you can be exposed to twice the solar energy amount, or that you can stay in the sun twice as long. Yes, SPF 20 does give more protection than SPF 10. But by how much is not so straightforward – SPF rating is not a linear relationship.

Note that elsewhere in the world, SPF testing and regulation follow other guidelines. The FDA’s SPF testing method varies from Europe’s Colipa method in the details but the basic principle remains the same. Click here for a presentation at the 2001 SCC Florida Chapter Sunscreen Symposium discussing some of the differences.. Basically, an SPF on a US sunscreen determined by the FDA has a different meaning than the SPF on a European sunscreen. Disagreements on SPF measurement are ongoing.

SPF rating is a guide to prevent sunburn. Sunburn (skin damage due to UVB rays) is easy to detect. If you pay attention, you can also feel when your skin is getting hot. Instead of relying on the ever-disputed, error-proned SPF numbers as a guide, a more practical approach is to practice sunscreen effectiveness awareness on yourself: choose a sunscreen – commercially made or homemade, chemical or physical, and get to know it well. Pay attention to your use (amount, frequency, evenness of application) taking external factors into consideration (i.e. environment, time of day, type of activity). If you got sunburned or missed a spot, then adjust your sunscreen use accordingly for the next time. In essence, you are performing your own in vivo testing under real world conditions. Though this approach may seem vague and difficult to put in practice at first, sunscreen (and sun) awareness is habit forming. In the long run, you can better tailor your personalized sunburn protection needs than by relying on various agencies’ and sunscreen manufacturers’ attempts to determine sunscreen needs for you.

For comparison, consider yourself as an average everyday athlete, one that is not training for the Olympics or an ironman triathlon. During the course of a day’s physical activity, you are not constantly monitoring your fluid and caloric intake to the detail. If you feel dehydrated, you drink more liquid. If you lack energy, you eat something. You don’t even think much about it anymore because you have made a habit of self-awareness of your own body’s needs. There are no regulations that classify a person into the type of athlete they are and based on that, prescribe them a numeric amount of fluid or calories they ought to consume. Energy bars and sports drinks do not have regulated fuzzy numbers and directions printed on their labels. That would just be silly.

So why not just explain sunburn awareness to people ? I don’t know. Oh by the way…sun products are a billion dollar industry. For me, I choose sunburn protection through sun-awareness and my $0.25/oz homemade sunscreen.

Up next, UVA testing and protection.
Update: Common Sense Sun Care and Homemade Sunscreens – Now Available! Click here to purchase and automatically download the PDF. $18.