I have a confession to make. We stopped wearing sunscreen this year. I was worried and nervous as we are all fairly fair skinned BUT I had a gut feeling moving me. Don't get me wrong, I educated that gut feeling and then stepped into it slowly.Here's the thing: sunscreens have lots of chemicals in them that are not FDA approved. Fine and well since you don't eat the goo right? Wrong. Skin in your body's largest organ and it absorbs those chemicals, many of them KNOWN cancer causing and banned substances. Well, golly gee, sun causes skin cancer too. What's a girl to do?
Vitamin D is a known cancer fighter. Your body makes that when exposed to the sun, real sunlight. So does it make sense to slather on cancer causing agents to block out a cancer preventing vitamin? Right. Moving on.
I burn. I burn bad. When I take a hot bath or get overheated the burn lines from the summer I was 14 reappear. That's why I was nervous.
I read that eating berries helps build up your skin from the inside out.
I read that being hydrated properly will reduce your chance of burning.
I read that adding coconut oil to your diet and beauty regiment would help.
I bought hats.
I favoured shady spots.
I wore appropriate clothing.
It is August. I've gotten rosy a couple times. Yesterday Lil'Bug did not stop to take water breaks and played for 5+ hours in her swimsuit in a fountain. She got a little rosy too. I slathered her with Shea Butter before bed. Today, she has no evidence of tenderness or discomfort. Me either. We went to the Fair without slathering up. We've spent most of our time outside this summer. No burns.
Huh. The experiment continues.
My family is a good mix of pasty white people and people who tan well.
ReplyDeleteThose of us who are prone to burning use a nice "chemical free" sunscreen from Alba Botanicals and a lot of moisturizing creams after we are in the sun.
We tried the chemical free sunscreens and faced yet another issue. The one time we forgot, 5 minutes into playing we were VERY burned. It was that we had covered the skin from sun exposure so much so often that it became fragile?
ReplyDeleteI use the chemical free stuff as well, and I am quite religious about slathering my kids. :)
ReplyDeleteGood for you that your experiment worked so well. It's definitely worth considering.
Ugh, sorry, I posted with my wrong profile from a blog that no longer exists
ReplyDeleteI think perhaps we read the same article. It was interesting -- here we are - not getting the Vit. D we need by putting on stuff we don't need.
ReplyDeleteI too went sunscreen free this year. No burns. We also went to the state fair -- nothin...My kiddos are now brown as berries. Full of Vit D. lOL
Great informational post... I hope someone learns something from it.
We rarely use sunblock, and my kids have never burned (though we do live in BC Canada, not as hot as Florida or Arizona or something). I do use it the first big hot day of each summer, and then in occasions where they are seeing significantly more sun on naked or exposed bodies than usual. This summer they've had sunblock on twice, and that's it. I want them to get tans, so that my grandchildren aren't even pastier white than we are, from what I understand skin pigment is one thing that changes very rapidly genetically from one generation to another.
ReplyDeleteThat's interesting. Genetic. Hmmmm.
ReplyDeleteWhen I started this summer's trial and error I was really worried that I was being neglectful or even potentially harming my babies BUT that is not how it happened to play out at all!
It does take intense mindfulness in regards to environment and diet but I was doing that anyway.
You know, I have always been anti-sunscreen for myself & then I had Makena and thought I should be the "responsible" parent and slather her when we go to the pool. After watching something on "Good Morning America" about Vitamin D deficincies being prevelant in teens due to over use of sunscreen, I've really backed off using it. I don't like the idea of her body soaking up all of those chemicals either.
ReplyDeletewoohoo!
ReplyDeletewe were sans this year, also - not once, even at the pool all day. (Sometimes it's once or twice a year that I put it nervously on the babes.) I thought that maybe they might get pink - they didn't.
I never use it for myself.
For the same cancer-causing reasons.
Very interesting. I will have to check into this and come up with a plan for next summer. I also dislike sunscreen and, as an aside, think it's ridiculous to give breastfed babies a Vit D suppliment when you can just take them outside a few times a week.
ReplyDeleteHi, delurking. :) I enjoy your blog, but I can't remember how I discovered it and added it to my google reader.
ReplyDeleteWe haven't used sunscreen in a decade. However, we don't lay out in the sun and avoid long exposure during high sun/high heat times. Basically following a 'if it is to hot for comfort, probably best to be in shade' philosophy. We've always wondered why more people didn't question the harm that might come from too much sunblock.