# sun screen



## Lizzy Pea (Aug 5, 2015)

With a Spanish summer ahead I have been researching sunscreens. Which sunsreens do you guys use/recommend? I am a blonde with quite fair skin.


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## Lynn R (Feb 21, 2014)

I buy Mercadona's own brand sunscreens, they have a range of factors from SPF6 to 50. I too have fair skin, and also suffer allergic reactions sometimes to sun creams, body lotions and soap, but have never had a problem with theirs. And they are very cheap, less than €5.


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## Lizzy Pea (Aug 5, 2015)

Thank you Lynn, I had forgotten that I also tend to have a lot of allergic reactions, I will try that.


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## Lizzy Pea (Aug 5, 2015)

Oh, by the way Lynn, which factor do you usually use?


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## kalohi (May 6, 2012)

Another blonde, with blue eyes and very fair skin here. I always use ISDIN products, which are sold in pharmacies. I especially like their 50+ facial sunscreen which is scent-free and which I use every day all year round. It allows me to wear a good sunscreen without smelling like coconuts and beach parties.


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## Lynn R (Feb 21, 2014)

Lizzy Pea said:


> Oh, by the way Lynn, which factor do you usually use?


It depends on how long I'm going to be in the sun for. If I'd be out (walking, for example, I don't tend to sunbathe) for hours, it would be at least 15 and 30 or 50 on things like shoulders and face, and reapply it. If I'm just popping out to the shops and will be out for an hour or less, I just use factor 6 apart from on the face.


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## snikpoh (Nov 19, 2007)

Preaching to the converted I suspect but ...;

The higher the factor does NOT mean the higher the protection! It just means that you can stay in the sun longer.

For example, if your skin would normally burn after 10 minutes in the sun, applying an SPF 15 sunscreen would allow you to stay in the sun without burning for approximately 150 minutes (a factor of 15 times longer).

Sun screen should be re-applied every 2 hours and always put on more than you think is necessary. 

(Most people under-apply sunscreens, using ¼ to ½ the amount required. Using half the required amount of sunscreen only provides the square root of the SPF. So, a half application of an SPF 30 sunscreen only provides an effective SPF of 5.5!)


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## AllHeart (Nov 22, 2013)

I don't use sunscreen as the chemicals of the sunscreen I think are worse than the effects of the sun. So I just don't stay in the sun for long. Also, vitamin D and melatonin are made with sun exposure. But if you're going to stay in the sun for a long time, definitely I would recommend sunscreen, though I don't use it so don't have a brand to recommend. Just to say that a little exposure might be good for you. Oh, and a little more advice from this song....


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## Lizzy Pea (Aug 5, 2015)

Thank you Snikpoh, that is very informative, I think thatI have been "under doing" the sunscreen.


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## Lizzy Pea (Aug 5, 2015)

AllHeart said:


> I don't use sunscreen as the chemicals of the sunscreen I think are worse than the effects of the sun. So I just don't stay in the sun for long. Also, vitamin D and melatonin are made with sun exposure. But if you're going to stay in the sun for a long time, definitely I would recommend sunscreen, though I don't use it so don't have a brand to recommend. Just to say that a little exposure might be good for you. Oh, and a little more advice from this song....
> 
> Baz Luhrmann - Everybody's Free To Wear Sunscreen - YouTube


I think that it depends on skin type, I do like the outdoors.


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## jojo (Sep 20, 2007)

I never ever use it!

Jo xxx


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## Pazcat (Mar 24, 2010)

Since moving to Europe I can probably count the number of times I have been burnt on one hand and I think both of them were on the first nice day after winter here in Spain after I had spent the last few months paling up.

The Sun is definitely a lot weaker here or more correctly there is more of an ozone layer for protection than I'm used to.


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## Lizzy Pea (Aug 5, 2015)

jojo said:


> I never ever use it!
> 
> Jo xxx


You look quite fair, is there any reason why you don't use sunscreen? I am worried about the ageing effect of uv radiation on my skin. The only times that I have been sunburned is when on holiday in Cornwall or Devon.


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## Lizzy Pea (Aug 5, 2015)

Pazcat said:


> Since moving to Europe I can probably count the number of times I have been burnt on one hand and I think both of them were on the first nice day after winter here in Spain after I had spent the last few months paling up.
> 
> The Sun is definitely a lot weaker here or more correctly there is more of an ozone layer for protection than I'm used to.


Ah, Australia, I am an English rose.


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## jimenato (Nov 21, 2009)

I don't like sunscreen - just don't like the slimy feel of it, particularly if you put enough of it on. 

I always preferred to simply cover up in light clothing and - always - a wide brimmed hat. And I never sunbathed - in fact mostly stayed in the shade. That becomes second nature once you've lived in the sun for a bit.

However - there's nothing wrong with it - just some silly unsubstantiated nonsense that the 'chemicals' are worse than the sun or even that it is sunscreen that causes skin cancer rather than the sun. 

If I weren't careful in other ways I would use it.


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## AllHeart (Nov 22, 2013)

jimenato said:


> However - there's nothing wrong with it - just some silly unsubstantiated nonsense that the 'chemicals' are worse than the sun or even that it is sunscreen that causes skin cancer rather than the sun.


I don't need any studies to think for me. It's common sense that it's toxic with all those chemicals. But like I said if you are in the sun for prolonged periods and you're going to burn if you don't use it, you should use it. Then it's the lesser of two evils. Again, just common sense. No rocket science degree required.


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## Chica22 (Feb 26, 2010)

For many years I never wore sunscreen, now I put on Mercadona own brand, either SP50 or tinted moisturizer with sun protection on my face on a daily basis.

OH never sunbathes and has now got small lumps on his nose due to sun damage, he never sunbathes, so the damage is purely as a result of spending long periods of time outdoors. (Still cant get him to wear the tinted moisturizer 

In the 10 years we have lived here, he has translated at the hospital for quite a number of people with sun damage to their ears, nose or decolage area. This has really made me conscious of damage to my face by the sun on a daily basis (not just the times I sunbathe). Maybe it works, maybe it doesnt, but it makes me feel better


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## Alcalaina (Aug 6, 2010)

I use Mercadona's factor 30 on my face and throat when I remember, but generally I prefer to stay in the shade. In southern Spain you only need ten minutes exposure a day to get all the vitamin D you need, and I get that just walking to the shop.


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## Costachick (Apr 22, 2016)

snikpoh said:


> Preaching to the converted I suspect but ...;
> 
> The higher the factor does NOT mean the higher the protection! It just means that you can stay in the sun longer.
> 
> ...


Absolutely true... I personally use a brand called pediatras that can be bought in the Farmacia, factor 50+, one facial and one for the body..


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## Pesky Wesky (May 10, 2009)

Chica22 said:


> For many years I never wore sunscreen, now I put on Mercadona own brand, either SP50 or tinted moisturizer with sun protection on my face on a daily basis.
> 
> OH never sunbathes and has now got small lumps on his nose due to sun damage, he never sunbathes, so the damage is purely as a result of spending long periods of time outdoors. (Still cant get him to wear the tinted moisturizer
> 
> In the 10 years we have lived here, he has translated at the hospital for quite a number of people with sun damage to their ears, nose or decolage area. This has really made me conscious of damage to my face by the sun on a daily basis (not just the times I sunbathe). Maybe it works, maybe it doesnt, but it makes me feel better


A friend of mine has just had minor surgery to have pre cancerous "lumps on the nose" removed and has been prescribed a strip to wear on her nose (looks like a plaster) all the time.
Has your husband been to a doctor?


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## Chica22 (Feb 26, 2010)

Pesky Wesky said:


> A friend of mine has just had minor surgery to have pre cancerous "lumps on the nose" removed and has been prescribed a strip to wear on her nose (looks like a plaster) all the time.
> Has your husband been to a doctor?


Yes, he has been to the hospital, non malignant, but as a result of the sun. They did offer to burn them off with a laser (they are only slighted raised lumps), but he refused. Considering he has mediterranean skin, that goes dark with the sun, and never burns, it is quite a worry. Although perhaps if he had skin that burns easily he would have taken better care of it.

It has certainly made me put on SPF50 on my face every day and now you have mentioned the possibility of having to walk around permanently with 'a strip on my nose' that has certainly made me determined to never go in the sun without protection.


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## GUAPACHICA (Jun 30, 2012)

*Advice from a British Skin Cancer Specialist Consultant*

Hi - Last year, for the second time, I had 3 'suspect' moles removed from my arms and legs. Each time it followed my periodic hospital consultations for a separate disease from which I suffer.

Very luckily, my NHS dermatologist's concerns proved unfounded - but I was still incredibly grateful at his having acted, very swiftly, because of those, to ensure that the relevant 'day surgery' procedures were carried out, ASAP!

As a young teenager, I spent three years living in Singapore where my father served as an RN officer. School used to finish, much as here in Spain, at around 2p.m. daily, so we fortunate 'Navy brats' used to head straight for HMS Terror's club and swimming pool - where we'd stay until night-fall! 
The issue of 'Skin Cancer' was virtually unheard of, in those far- off days of the early sixties...but, more than half a century later, with that 'Equatorial sojourn' listed, permanently, on my medical file, the possibility of my suffering skin cancer is higher than normal, which is why my dermatologist errs, very much, on the side of caution in his regular 'mole -checks' during my attendance at his clinic! 

The 'Skin Cancer' specialist consultant, to whom I was referred for my biopsies and lab. results, advised me that in both the UK and Spain I should always apply a sunscreen when going outdoors. Skin cancer occurrences are increasingly, alarmingly, in the UK - particularly in Scotland, where fair or red hair and pale skin are common, but my consultant stated that British citizens with darker hair and skin ( like myself) are also, now, at great risk - due to the thinning of the ozone layer and the subsequent loss of its formerly protective shield. 

BTW; he told me that, also, that having witnessed the rapidly increasing numbers of British patients with skin cancer, he ensures that his own young children never leave home without 'Sun Factor 50' on all exposed areas of their bodies - throughout the year! 

He advised me, strongly, to apply that same 'factor level' to my own skin - and I do. There's nothing like a fortnight's wait for the hospital lab. results of a mole biopsy to focus one's mind, fully, on the need to follow that expert advice - and to give up (albeit, with deep regret and longing) the previously much- enjoyed extensive sun- bathing bouts on beautiful Spanish beaches...! 

After all, as that consultant reminded me - a single episode of sunburn ( reddened skin) can be sufficient to cause life- threatening forms of malignant Skin cancer, several years later! 

Consequently, I dread to think of the many fair - haired, pink- skinned British babies whose doting parents would carry them into the 'children's pool' within the Singapore Naval Base club, with no sun- protection of any kind; delighting in their offsprings' instinctive attempts at 'dog- paddling'! We were just one degree off the Equator, with the burning sun almost directly overhead... 

So, I have wondered, whilst undergoing my own 'mole removal' surgery, just how many cases of skin cancer were caused by that blissful ignorance of those parents - who, at that time, could have been forgiven for having known no better!
I can only hope that the children concerned have all proved to be as lucky as myself (to date), with no seriously adverse consequences...

Nowadays, of course, such parental ignorance would be inexcusable! All children should be protected from the sun's dangerous rays to the fullest possible extent - with which, modern sunscreen lotions and gels can assist, provided that they are correctly chosen and applied! Obviously, young children and babies need appropriate sun- protective clothing, too - as is the case, for example, in all Australian primary school playgrounds. 

I have winced, often, when in Spain, at the sight of babies and toddlers being transported in their buggies, their heads and bodies under the sunshades - but with their tiny pink bare legs and feet exposed directly to the strong sun, their (apparently) unaware parents strolling along behind, seemingly unable to perceive the incipient risk of serious sunburn...and subsequent skin cancer...absolutely horrendous!

Saludos,
GC.


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## GUAPACHICA (Jun 30, 2012)

*UK News Update!*

Hi all - I thought you might find this BBC News report from the UK helpful in relation to the discussion to date. Summer is now here ( although, being temporarily in England, I'm not totally convinced..), so a reminder to 'slap on' a high quality sunscreen product and to avoid lengthy exposure to the sun, wherever we are, Is timely, no doubt:

Skin cancer rise warning for over 55s - BBC News

Stay safe!
GC


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## snikpoh (Nov 19, 2007)

GUAPACHICA said:


> Hi all - I thought you might find this BBC News report from the UK helpful in relation to the discussion to date. Summer is now here ( although, being temporarily in England, I'm not totally convinced..), so a reminder to 'slap on' a high quality sunscreen product and to avoid lengthy exposure to the sun, wherever we are, Is timely, no doubt:
> 
> Skin cancer rise warning for over 55s - BBC News
> 
> ...


Remember that high quality doesn't equate to expensive!

Any of the cheaper brands will do provided they have the necessary protection (UVA, UVB etc.)


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## fergie (Oct 4, 2010)

jojo said:


> I never ever use it!
> 
> Jo xxx


JO,please start to use some sun protection, my husband never used to use any until 2006, since then he has spent an absolute fortune on having pre cancerous skin lesions treated , and some which had turned to basal cell carcinoma removed.
He used to worship the sun, and getting as toasted as he could till now.


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## Pesky Wesky (May 10, 2009)

More info on sun screen
https://www.youtube.com/embed/JX8rv_natkw


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