Sunkissed?

I have strawberry blond hair and blue eyes. I never really tan, I mostly just burn... and I've had some nasty burns over the years.  Shoulders and back were pretty regular summer burns.  One summer my nose peeled all summer and through the winter - yuck.  Another year my hands were severely burned after spending a cloudy day on the lake.  And don't forget all those times the tops of my ears were burned and at night they would bubble up and my hair would stick to them, them I'd have to rip it off the skin as I pulled my hair back in the morning - ewww!!!  I spend many years as a teenager trying to "tan" and even went to a tanning salons for a while when I was 19.  Then we moved to the northwest and everything changed for me. I began using heavy sunscreen and decided to just accept my glowing white skin. 

This spring was unusually cold and cloudy. We didn't have many of those famous warm Seattle afternoons. Then out of nowhere if finally hits over 70 two days in a row and I end up spending over 8 hours in direct sun both days for a baseball tournament.  I started out the day with sunscreen and even sat under an umbrella. I was mostly worried about my face... but I seem to have that pretty much covered these days and rarely get nasty sunburns on my face because I use Bare Minerals make up, which is SPF 15.  I usually only need to apply full sunscreen if I am going to be a full day in the sun, at the pool, etc.

Just a few hours in I was so red that people I didn't even know would come up to me and spray me with sunscreen. (incidentally, the sunscreen industry now says those spray on sunscreens may not be as effective as they once thought - duh!) By day two I was an official lobster.  For the next day, I had a bit of heat stroke and I realized the sunburn was getting worse. I was bathing in aloe and lotion and trying to drink extra water...  And 4 days later the above picture is what I looked like. I was actually quite a bit more red overall that really shows up in this photo, but certain areas on my chest and scalp really started looking different than the rest of my skin and that worried me.

As my arms and legs peeled, these extra red patches blistered up to look even worse!  This second picture was taken 1 week after the initial sunburn. I didn't even take photos on it's worst day because it was just so gross. My family doctor wanted to treat it as a 2nd degree burn with antibiotic ointment... but by dermatologist prescribed Biofine, which is often used for cancer patients undergoing radiation treatment.

Things you may not know about sunscreen - It takes 1-2 ounces to completely cover your face.  That's at least 1 shot glass!

A typical bottle of sunscreen is good for about 2 full applications (face, shoulders, chest, arms, etc..)

Sunscreen needs to be reapplied about every hour. Some ingredients break down when exposed to UV (that's how they work) and sunscreen is also easily sweated, rubbed, wiped and washed off.

Look for UVA and UVB protection.  UVB Rays penetrate the outer layer of skin and are the primary cause of sunburn. UVA penetrate into into the layers of the skin.  Neutrogena has been my sunscreen of choice for years.

SPF (Sun Protection Factor) helps measure how long you can stay in the sun with sunscreen before getting burned. SPF measurement is quite arbitrary and does NOT measure either wrinkle protection or skin cancer protection. Consequently, ALL manufacturers of sunscreen have recently been sued for false advertising.

Notice, too, that the amount of sunscreen needed to achieve the results quoted is impressive: generally, a hand full of sunscreen is used to cover a body. In other words, a standard tube is good for TWO (2) applications! Which takes us back to were I began...

And here I am on my soapbox reminding you all to use handfuls of sunscreen and cover up this summer!