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Through the glass Lightly
Sun Exposure and Your Skin. What you need to know about Sunscreens and Photo-Aging
Did you know that you can get sun damage, just by sitting near a sunny window? UVA light is the culprit. Like all light, UVA penetrates glass and it penetrates your skin - well past the epidermis, into the dermal layers you can't see. Although UVA rays only cause 1/1000th of the redness caused by UVB rays - the light primarily responsible for sunburn - they are even more damaging to your skin. Sitting by a window, even if you don't feel heat or redness, you can still be exposed to the skin-cancer-producing damage of UVA light exposure.
Everyday sun exposure that occurs when you're walking to and from work or school, or, yes, sitting by a sunny window, is the primary cause of skin - aging. Aging caused by light exposure, called photo-aging, is the biggest cause of our facial wrinkles, crows-feet, grainy texture, freckles and 'age spots'.
Unlike UVB light, which is strongest between 2-4 pm, the sun emits the same amount of UVA light all day long. Some sunscreens are very good at blocking UVB light but are not as affective at blocking UVA. Read labels on your sunscreen carefully. You want a screen or block that does both. Without double protection, you could be staying out longer, thinking you're protected, but in fact, you're still giving your skin an overdose of UVA with all that additional sun time.
A quick look at skin on the inside of your arm compared to the outside of the arm, shows you the difference light exposure makes in skin quality.
What to do? Block. Block the sun whenever, wherever, however. Thanks to today's suncare research, fueled by increasing concerns about aging, skin cancer, and the dangers of a thinning ozone layer, there are more ways to fight back against photo-aging.
Not only will blocking the sun prevent burning and aging, it will also help control such common skin disorders as Porphyria, a condition that forms blisters on the hands and face when they are over-exposed to light. Another concern, scientists are studying, is the structural changes in skin cells caused by infrared radiation caused by everyday light exposure.
We All Need Sun Protection
We all need protection, regardless of heredity, sex or age but dermatologists say the young are at greatest risk because up to 80% of damage caused by ultraviolet rays occurs before age 18. Why? Kids spend more time outdoors and in the sun. What's most disturbing about this exposure, is that it takes decades for all the evidence to show up on the surface - in wrinkles, rough, grainy texture, sagging, loss of firmness and cancer. Who knows if that basal cell carcinoma started last summer on St. Barth's - or 30 years ago in the family's backyard sand box?
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