Sunscreen season is here.
Some sunny days are expected this week as the weather continues to warm, and summer will soon begin in earnest for many with Victoria Day weekend. It’s a handy time to remember some essential skin safety tips.
Between 80 and 90 per cent of all skin cancers — the most common type of cancer — are caused by ultraviolet rays, which come from the sun, according to the Canadian Skin Cancer Foundation. The Canadian Cancer Society estimates 1,300 Canadians will die this year from melanoma, the most dangerous form of skin cancer.
Rates of skin cancer have been steadily increasing for the past three decades in Canada, despite it being highly preventable.
“If we said, hey, do this one thing once a day and you could prevent breast cancer, we would probably do it,” Amy Rosvold, director of marketing for the Save Your Skin Foundation, previously told the Star. “With skin cancer, there’s a bit of a disconnect.”
It doesn’t help that sunscreen myths are on the rise, so much so that Health Canada issued a warning last year about sunscreen misinformation.
Here’s what you should be doing instead to avoid permanently damaging your skin.
Sunscreen myths
You can make sunscreen at home
If you do, it’s unlikely to actually protect you from the sun. Influencers touting “homemade alternatives” to store-bought sunscreen claim it’s easy to DIY at home, but Health Canada recommends using only authorized sunscreen products that have either a drug identification number or natural product number.
You can find those numbers on your sunscreen labelled as “DIN” or “NPN.”
You’re using enough sunscreen
You’re probably not. People tend to use much less than they should, meaning the SPF protection can be only a fraction of what is on the label, according to Cheryl Rosen, a dermatologist at Toronto Western Hospital.
That’s why Rosen recommends looking for an SPF of 50 or 60 to ensure protection even if you’re using less than you should. Benjamin Barankin, medical director at the Toronto Dermatology Centre, recommends applying your normal level of sunscreen — then immediately reapplying the same amount to ensure you’ve used enough.
You should be reapplying at least every two hours, Health Canada recommends. Even if you haven’t been in the sun, you still should reapply, because your base layer may have worn off through contact with clothes or other objects, according to Rosvold.
If you’ve been swimming or sweating, you may need to reapply more often. If you’ve towelled off, you need to reapply as well.
You don’t need sunscreen if it’s cloudy
You should still be mindful of time spent outside, as UV rays can damage your skin even on a cloudy day. Around 80 per cent of UV rays penetrate clouds, according to Barankin — and weather can deviate from the forecast. An overcast sky can turn to beating sun quickly.
Rosvold even recommends wearing sunscreen on exposed skin in the winter — especially on something like a ski hill, where snow will reflect light.
You don’t need sunscreen if you have darker skin
You do. UV rays can still damage your skin, even if it’s darker. Your risk of damage is higher if you burn easily, but people with black or brown skin still get skin cancer from sun exposure, albeit at lower rates, according to Rosen.
Because some sunscreen creams can be quite white, Rosen said you can add some foundation to make it closer to your skin colour.
You can tan safely
Tanning is a sign of skin damage, according to experts.
And there’s no such thing as a base tan either, said Rosen, who is also a professor at the University of Toronto who researches public education for skin cancer prevention. The idea of a base tan is that it decreases your risk of burning in the future — but it actually only gives you an SPF of three or four, an order of magnitude smaller than the SPF of 50 to 60 that Rosen recommends for sunscreens.
Self-tanning products are safe to use, Rosen said, but don’t protect you from getting a sunburn.
You can’t get skin damage through a window
You can. Most windows block UVB rays, which cause sunburns and skin cancer, but not UVA rays, which cause wrinkling and also play a role in causing skin cancer.
If sitting by a window or driving in a car for more than 15 minutes, you should wear sunscreen, Barankin said. The same is true for travellers on airplanes.
When buying sunscreen, look for one labelled with “UVA” in a circle, which means the product has met the European standard of UVA protection, or “broad spectrum.” SPF only tells you about how much the sunscreen protects you from a sunburn, so it tells you much more about protection from UVB than UVA, Rosen said.
Sunblock is different from sunscreen
There’s no such thing as sunblock. Only thick fabric can fully block UV rays from the sun, according to Rosen.
Sunscreens limit the damage that UV rays do to your skin, but they don’t block it entirely.
You don’t need to apply sunscreen if you’re not planning to be outside
Rosen believes you still should. You should apply sunscreen every day during the summer, regardless of your plans. It’s easy to be caught outside even if you didn’t expect it.
“I tell people to have it there in the morning, beside their toothbrush,” Rosen said.
Sunscreen is the same, no matter where you buy it
It’s not. Canada and Europe have approved more ingredients for use in sunscreen than the U.S., Rosen said.
“If you’re going south on a vacation, buy your sunscreen before you go,” she explained.
You’ll get Vitamin D deficiency if you use sunscreen
You likely won’t. Studies show that daily sunscreen use does not lead to Vitamin D deficiency, Rosvold said. If you’re worried about it, it’s much safer to take Vitamin D as a pill than risk damaging your skin, Rosen said.
And if you’re in the sun for a long period of time, your skin will stop making Vitamin D and instead make two inactive compounds.
“Staying out for longer doesn’t make more D,” Rosen said. “It just leads to more skin damage.”
SPF in makeup is enough to protect your skin
It depends, both on what the SPF is and how much you’re using, Rosvold said. Whether you’re reapplying also plays a factor.
But Rosvold recommends using an actual face sunscreen before applying makeup, instead of relying on what’s already in your products.
The bottom line
A combination of strategies — including applying sunscreen, finding shade, avoiding the peak hours of 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and wearing protective clothing, like a long-sleeve shirt and hat — is the best approach to limit damage from the sun.
And remember it’s not just about the short-term inconvenience of a sunburn. In the long run, skin damage could mean sunspots, wrinkles and cancer.
“People don’t sometimes appreciate the long-term impact,” Barankin said. “They feel that they’re young and invincible. That’s certainly not the case. You will pay the price and we see that day in and day out in our clinics.”
