I write this on my phone while on a 4 hour Shinkansen journey from Hiroshima to Tokyo...the last leg of my trip. I did start writing this in a tiny little note book i had, but then i remembered i still have the Blogger App on my phone.
So I've plugged my headphones in and i wanted to write a post on the sun, or rather the effects the sun has on our bodies.
Now a lot of people won't listen to my advice on suntans as im pale, but this is forced, I'm not naturally pale....
My eyes are green, my hair (naturally) is super dark brown with hints of red, which means, i actually take the sun pretty well, like my dad, i always had a great tan when we went away when i was younger. But from my super late teens early 20's i decided tans weren't for me, it didn't suit me, my style, who i am. And also i learnt a lot about what it does to your skin.
My mum burns, every time the sun comes out, know why, cos when she was my age, she didn't have the high factors we have now and she probably only ever used something stupid like a factor 10 tanning oil!! She's just come back from a trip with her bestie and sister from Italy. I skyped her while she was there and she had a bright red nose... So i said to her, how come I've been out in 25+ degrees for almost 2 weeks and I'm only just starting to get a little but of colour, you've been out 1 day and you're red....here came the "well we didn't expect it to be so sunny. we got caught out."
She's turning 60 next weekend and i thought she'd have learnt by now.
I only 'have a go' because i want her to stay healthy!!
Its a known fact that once we burn we are always predisposed to burning in that place more than somewhere we haven't burnt before, so you always burn your nose, because you've burnt it before. The high points on your bodies or the bits that are usually exposed on holidays, shoulders, noses, heads. These need protecting so much!!
I will never use anything less than factor 50, i want the best protection for my skin, after all its the only one I've got.
Most people think this is cos i want to be pale, a small factor, but wanna know how i actually stay pale, i stay out of the sun at its hottest, i sit under a parasol, or go to the bar or put a towel over me!! I avoid the hell out of the mid day sun!!
The girls i know who want a perfectly golden tan don't do anything to gain a long lasting, fairly "safe" good looking tan...
Want to know where that starts, exfoliate!! The sun is only going to hit the dead layer on top if you don't exfoliate, whats the point in that.
Second moturise (inside and out!!), if your skin is well hydrated your tan will last longer and not just fade as soon as you get home.
Third, the harder the sun effectively has to work to give you a tan, the deeper it will be and the longer it will last. So using a low factor, which is so fucking stupid, (apologies for my language, this really gets my goat!!) Will give you a superficial dangerous tan....
Now you might be lucky and the sun will never do anything harmful to your body...but if you're not so lucky and you end up having something cut from your skin because you didn't wear a high factor sun cream, and avoid the midday sun, you'll wish you had. I know people who's parents have had to have bits of skin removed because it was cancerous, and they wish they'd known more about the sun when they were younger.
There's so much advice all over the interweb on how to protect your skin please, i stress this, pleaseeeeee use it, and stop thinking that if you wear factor 50 you're going to stay pale!!
Being brown after going red might be "fashionable" but you wont think that if you end up with a chunk missing out of a shoulder....
