SPF Love. Sun Protection Factor Forever.



OOOh My favorite topic. How not to age in the soleil. From The New York Times... Click on the article to link to more.


Just in time for summer, sunscreen makers have launched their own version of an arms race. Marketers are labeling bottles with ever higher SPFs — the sunscreen protection factor that signals how long you can safely stay in the sun.

As Catherine Saint Louis explains in this week’s Skin Deep column, a sunscreen’s SPF number is calculated based on how long it would take unprotected skin to burn in the sun. That means a person who turns red after 20 minutes of unprotected sun exposure is theoretically protected 15 times longer if they adequately apply SPF 15. Because a lot of sunscreens wash or sweat off, reapplication every few hours is recommended, no matter what the SPF number.

But experts say that sunscreen labels now boast of SPF numbers so high, they no longer really mean anything.

Now SPF creep has hit the triple digits with Neutrogena’s SPF 100+ sunblock, leading some dermatologists to complain that this is merely a numbers game that confuses consumers. The parade of stratospheric SPFs is “crazy,” said Dr. Barbara A. Gilchrest, a dermatology professor at Boston University School of Medicine. “For a normal person who is fair-skinned and concerned about skin damage and photoaging,” Dr. Gilchrest said, “it’s really in my opinion tremendous overkill.”

To learn more about the new products and the real meaning of SPF numbers, read the full column, “Confused by SPF? Take a Number.”

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