- Of course!
- Why’s that?
- You know the first reason, the sun rips the little legs off molecules…
- Ugh yeah, I remember!
- Good. Now tell me, how important is collagen and elastin to you?
- Very! If a product claims to improve collagen production I always buy it.
- Well, that’s not a very logical behaviour… You’re trying to encourage the production of new collagen but don’t protect what you have already.
- What do you mean?
- My dear, the sun rays destroy your own collagen and elastin.
- Are you serious?!
- Couldn’t be more serious if I tried. I really don’t get people! They’ll take expensive collagen containing supplements, will use all sorts of creams and eat avocados but never consider that their own molecules are destroyed on a daily basis because they don’t use protection.
- That’s terrible! How can I protect my own collagen?
- Start with a sunscreen.
- I cant choose one, I get confused by all these "SPF", "PA++", "UVA". What do they mean!?
- Let’s understand SPF first.
- I’ve heard that SPF15 allows you to stay in the sun for 150 minutes and SPF50 - for a whole 500!
- No! That is one of the most dangerous myths!
- But why?
- First of all, no matter the number on the packaging, any cream will protect you for no more than 2 hours.
- But what does the number mean then?
- Divide 100% with your SPF number.
- 100%:SPF50=2%
- This product will block 98% of sun rays but 2% will still get through. Don’t worry though, this is the highest protection you can get. It is impossible to block 100% of the rays.
- What about SPF70 or even 100?
- They don’t exist. It’s a marketing gimmick which is plainly false.
- SPF15 isn’t too bad either! It blocks 93.4% of the sun rays!
- No, it still let’s through 6.6% which is more than enough to get serious sun damage to your cells. Try not to use anything below SPF30.
- All year round or just summer?
- Well even in summer there are days when protection is not always necessary.
- Cloudy days?
- Not always. You can get as much damage on grey, cloudy days as on the sunny ones. But there are also sunny days when you could leave the house with no protection but I will tell more next time.
