It is important to watch out for the health of your skin all of the time especially if you are exposed to the sun. Those who are light skinned are more susceptible to being affected by the harmful ultraviolet rays so they must be more wary. Sun damage shows up on the skin by wrinkles and fine lines, age spots and various forms of keratosis such as actinic & seborrheic keratosis.
In the first place, you have to know why the skin gets darker when staying in the sun. When exposed, the melanin of our skin makes it darker. Melanin is formed differently for every person. This is why there are those people who get their skins tan faster than those whose skins don’t tan at all. Your location like the type of your skin are factors that affect the level of skin darkening. The nearer you are to the equator, the heater the rays of the sun are.
Sun protection creams work in various ways for the protection of our skin against the harmful rays of the sun. Physical and chemical sun filters go in mixtures on most of the sun protection creams that are out in the market while there are those with just either of the two.
Sun filters serve its intention in penetrating the skin and absorbing the rays of the sun. The damage is avoided because the harmful rays of the sun do not go through the lower layers of the skin. Chemical filters are best utilized in protecting the skin from damage. On the other hand, the rays of the sun are reflected back by the thin membrane that physical filter covers on top of the skin.
Sun protection creams are helpful in protecting the skin against ultraviolet type A rays or UVA rays and ultraviolet type B rays or UVB rays. The more popular term for these sun protection creams is broad spectrum cream. The damage done by ultraviolet type B rays affects the burning of the topmost layer of the skin that may lead to skin cancer. Ultraviolet type A rays, on the other hand, do not burn but they go through into the skin which affect aging.
The acronym SPF refers to sun protection factor which measures the strength of the sun protection cream against harmful UVB rays. However, applying a sunscreen with a high sun protection factor should not let you stay in the sun more because doing so will only lead you to being exposed to more UVA rays. You must first consider your skin type when purchasing a sun protection cream. Most people can manage application of sun protection cream with an SPF 15.
