Skinspiration…  The Sun

*Disclaimer; All work produced in this skinspiration blog is owned by Nicole Webb, with copyrights to La Beauté Ltd.  

Many of us including myself love the sun, its heat and the positive impact that it plays on our state of mind. The sun and exposure to it’s UV rays is beneficial to us, it provides us with the ability to produce vitamin D naturally. BUT it also has the ability to create a complete disaster.

We have all experienced the effects of the sun…being bright red and burnt, peeling and sore, having funny tan lines. There is a VERY fine line between the positive and negative effects of sun exposure.

THE POSITIVE… When we are exposed to the sun’s UV rays it enables our body to produce Vitamin D naturally. Vitamin D aids in the absorption of calcium and phosphorus from foods and its considered a hormone which plays a vital role protecting our bones, heart and brain along with assisting our immune system to fight off any invasion of infection or disease. Sun exposure for 10-15 minutes per day provides us with our daily need of vitamin D. To get the best absorption of vitamin D in that time frame, expose your spine to the sun, the spine has large blood vessels close to the surface therefore you will receive the quickest and highest levels of absorption.

THE NEGATIVE… The sun’s UV ray has a profound negative effect on our skin. 90% of symptoms of skin ageing are created by UV exposure.

It is proven THE SUN WILL SPEED UP AGEING DRAMATICALLY!

This is due to what the UV does to our skin structure, and the cells inside the skin. The sun’s effects on the sun is;

Damages and decreases our ‘Langerhan cells’; langerhan cells are our bodies immune responding cells. With less langerhan cells there is an increase risk of infection and bacteria entering the body or the body not picking up an infection/disease until it is too late. Inflammation; any inflammation in the skin has an ageing effect, This is due to inflammation or irritation causing damage to the DNA in our cells, which speeds up ageing in the cell. Break down of collagen and elastin; this is the main structure of your skin, when this is broken down lines and wrinkles appear. The more sun exposure the more wrinkles you will have. Pigmentation; this is one of the most visible indications of sun exposure. When the skin is exposed to UV it stimulates our skin colour cells ‘melanocytes’ to produce melan (pigment) in the skin, this is our skin’s way of trying to naturally protect itself. Long-term UV exposure will lead to visible pigmentation on the skin surface. Those big brown pigmentation spots don’t just happen over night, they are from repetitive long term exposure.

Rouge skin cells; sun exposure effects the cells internal make up and can create unstable, rouge cells which create mayhem within the skin and stimulates, creates or supports negative changes within the skin.

Skin cancer; occurs when a melanocyte cell becomes abnormal, grows uncontrollably, invades surrounding tissue and creates internal changes to become cancerous. This is stimulated by sun exposure.

SPF & SUNSCREEN… Sunscreen is one of your best and cheapest anti-ageing products. It is a MUST that should be applied 365 days a year, regardless of the weather as even on the greyest day there is still UV rays in the environment.

SPF what is it? SPF stands for Sun Protection Factor, this means the percentage of protection you have from the sun. The numbers on the bottle (15, 30, 50 etc) DON’T refer to how long you can spend outside without getting sunburnt, they refer to the amount of protection the sunscreen offers.

SPF 15 filters out 93 percent of UVB rays.

SPF 30 filters out 97 percent,

SPF 50 blocks 98 percent,

SPF 100 blocks 99 percent.

But the higher the number is not always better. As you can see there is a 1% increase in the protection from SPF 30 to SPF 50 but there is so many more ingredients (some negative) in the product to get that 1%. An SPF 15 or 30 is an ideal percentage to use on a regular basis.

Remember that the effectiveness of sunscreen decreases over time. Plus if you’re swimming or sweating, the sunscreen washes away. It is essential to reapply sunscreen every two hours — don’t wait to see your skin turning red before reapplying.

It is a MUST that you wear sunscreen on your face every day. Its the best preventer for ageing we have. I am lenient on the rest of the body, this is after all how we get Vitamin D. If you are going to the beach, lake or outside for long periods, slip slop slap the whole body otherwise its the face every day no excuses!

Remember to slip, slop, slap and enjoy what is looking to be a great summer.