Does Your Sunscreen Provide Long-Term Protection?

Remember that really nasty sunburn you got as a kid? You turned red as a beet, then everything peeled off in really disgusting layers.

Believe it or not, that awful experience probably wasn’t the worst damage the sunburn caused to your body.

Scientists still don’t understand exactly how sunburns happen, but they do know that it’s a complex chemical reaction that creates free radicals that damage DNA molecules in the skin, dilating blood vessels and then recruiting inflammatory compounds to help minimize the damage. The horrible peeling skin is caused when the burn was so bad it destroyed those molecules and your skin sloughed off because it was dead. Not all the damaged DNA peels off though. The UVB rays that caused the burn have a short wavelength and generally don’t penetrate the inner layers of your skin. UVA rays have longer wavelengths and can penetrate more deeply, causing long-term damage to cells where photoaging occurs and most skin cancers start. Sunscreens of yesteryear were formulated to protect only against the UVB rays that caused immediate and painful damage, but newer sunscreens – called broad-spectrum – protect against both UVA and UVB rays. The problem is that the SPF (Sun Protection Factor) we use to measure sunscreen only shields your skin from UVB rays. There’s no easy way to measure how much protection your sunscreen offers against the more harmful UVA rays that damage DNA by generating free radicals in the deepest part of your skin. And on top of that, chemical sunscreens are absorbed into your skin where they absorb the UVB rays, causing more DNA damage under your skin. The easy answer – I know you hoped I had one – is a mineral sunscreen formulated with antioxidants that counteract the damaging free radicals. Mineral sunscreens sit on top of your skin where they block, rather than absorb, the sun. That means an SPF of 25 protects against both UVB damage that can easily be measured by how quickly your skin burns and the UVA rays that cause long-term damage to deeper layers of your skin. It’s the free radicals -- atoms without paired electrons -- released by overexposure to the sun that harm your skin at the cellular level. They rip through collagen and elastin fibers, leading to wrinkles, dark spots and saggy skin. And free radicals are the ultimate cause of most skin cancers. You can’t avoid free radicals, even if you totally avoid the sun, but antioxidants combat them by “donating” an electron to the unbalanced atom, effectively halting the process. That’s why Stream2Sea’s sunscreen and body care products are packed with powerful antioxidants that take protection from the sun a step further than just blocking its rays.