Can't wait for summer sun? Get in line. But first, the good news ... and um, the bad news. The number of sunscreens that passed the Environmental Working Group's 2012 test is higher than ever before!
Yay! Do the happy dance! In your bikini! With sunscreen on! Only, you better hope it was one of the one in four that won't end up making you sick.
Gotcha, didn't I? Things are getting better on the shelves, but they're still not great.
The EWG, which happens to be the bigwig nonprofit in determining what companies have toxic nasties in their beauty products, say that one in four of more than 800 beach and sport sunscreens passed the test this year. That's good when compared to one in five last year and one in 12 the year before, but it doesn't mean we're in the clear. A fourth of the sunscreens in the test actually had retinyl palmitate or vitamin A in them, a chemical the Food and Drug Administration and National Toxicology Program say heightens your risk of skin cancer. And you don't want to get them started on the hormone-disrupting chemicals and allergy-causing fragrances and what-not and what-have-you.
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Talk about your catch-22.
I put on sunscreen because I don't want to get sick. I put it on because I think I'm doing something GOOD for myself! But the way they tell it, I can be slathering myself up with something that is going to end up making me sick in the end anyway ... so what, exactly, did I win? Here I am looking like Casper, and all I have to show for it is, um, cancer?
I'm a summer baby, and I love the sun. I can't wait for it to come so I can stop shivering in my hoodies and jeans. But I loathe it too. Because I spend every spring standing in the store trying to figure out what sunscreen isn't going to actually waste my time, or at least trying to remember what is on the EWG "safe" list (thank God for smartphones, I can pull that up anywhere).
Which worries you more: what's in your sunscreen or what the sun could be doing to your skin?
Image via Ollie Crafoord/Flickr
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Comments 22
Most of my family were farmers. I can tell you that not one of them used sun block and not one of them died of skin cancer. Did my grandfather look like a leather handbag?... kinda. But that mixed with his snow white hair made him look sweet to me. That side is german but we tan like an italian so... To answer your question I have more a problem with unnatural chemicals being placed on my skin. Coconut oil and zinc oxide is fine... but other than my nose I don't use it.
Someone asked where to find a good sunscreen since they don't know what to buy. Check vitamin shoppe if there is one near you or even amazon and just look at the ingredients. http://www.emaxhealth.com/1020/66/31859/five-foods-protect-sunburn-and-skin-cancer.html There are other things you can do to prevent sunburns too, like making sure you are eating the right things. drinking green tea and getting lots of omega 3's protects you from burns and cancer.
Is there any actual solidated proof that these sunscreens will give you cancer? Are there any people actually suffering from cancer because of their sunscreen? With as many things as we claim to give cancer, I'm starting to wonder if it's something in the water. We keep wondering about the stuff we put in our sun protection, but the fact still remains that the sun has actually proven its lethality time and time again with melenoma, severe sunburns, heat exhaustion, and heat stroke. Until we have solid proof and actual proven victims, I'll continue to slather on the sunscreen.
No sunscreen or bug repellant, either. Those things are so full of chemical! Folks just need to cover themselves up and stay out of the sun (if possible) when it is at its highest.
Made with minerals not chemicals!
And this is why you don't want our schools putting sunscreens on our children!!!!