Sunscreen is a ‘popular cosmetic product’ to fight skin cancer

June 13 is World Skin Cancer Day. It is the most common type of cancer in people today and is most easily prevented by using sunscreen every day, for example.

In fact, according to Helena Rodero, hair specialist, pharmacist and scientist, in an interview with Europa Press INfosalus on the occasion of the publication of the book “All About Your Hair and Skin” (Penguin Random House), “sunscreen should always be our favorite cosmetic because that if we do not protect our skin from sun exposure, the risk of developing skin cancer and melanoma increases. It’s a shame because usually we only remember about it in the summer, but we need to use it all year round.”

“If we don’t apply sunscreen, our skin ages faster because it ages, but we want to do it as best we can. If we don’t use it, we will have more wrinkles, more sagging and more blemishes than we would have if we didn’t protect ourselves from the sun,” explains this expert.

“Best anti-aging product”

In fact, he claims, sun protection is “the only cosmetic product that can be called anti-aging that has been proven in numerous studies to be effective.” In fact, remember that sun exposure is the main cause of skin aging. “So if you take away that part of aging, you take away a lot of the accelerated aging,” says Helena Rodero.

Here, in turn, this pharmacist remembers that there are essentially two radiations: ultraviolet B radiation, which burns us and increases the risk of skin cancer and melanoma; and ultraviolet A, which is stable all year round and throughout the day, is what ages us and also increases the risk of skin cancer and melanoma. “Both reinforce each other, one amplifies the negative effects of the other,” he notes.

Until he continues, it was believed that skin was only damaged by ultraviolet B radiation, which could cause burns on the skin, the letter B in English meaning “burnt” or “burnt”; although this indicates that the sun has been found to emit various radiations that increase damage, such as ultraviolet A radiation, “A” stands for “ageing” or “ageing” in English, “the cause of photoaging (spots, wrinkles, sagging ), as well as the fact that sunscreen should also have maximum UVA protection.

“It doesn’t matter why you wear sunscreen to burn yourself, to avoid skin cancer or because you don’t want to speed up your aging; but you should always apply it daily and reapply it,” says this specialist.

That being said, we asked Helena Rodero what are the main mistakes we make with sunscreen, pointing out first and foremost that we apply less than we need.

“You’ll have to add about 1 milliliter every time we use it. The sunscreen contains 40-50 milliliters, and it always lasts a long time; There are even people who have had this since last year, here we are already making another mistake,” he notes. Specifically, the book details that we should apply “to the face and neck the equivalent of two fingers filled with 1.5 milliliters of cream.”

Another mistake is not replacing it, as this expert points out: if you put it on at 8:00 and leave work at 15:00, you’ll have to replace the sunscreen because the one you put on in the morning has become almost eliminated. , even more so if you have oily skin, he explains, because it sort of dissolves it.

After that, he says, we use tinted sunscreen as our only sunscreen, and we will always use less than we should because the color will never match our skin. “So it won’t protect us in the same way, we don’t use it well,” Rodero insists.

At the same time, he advises that choosing the best sunscreen for each person is the “key”, and to this end, he suggests that we like its texture, the way it is applied and its scent so that it does not bother us, and we use it every day of the year.

Use a sunscreen with at least SPF50, ideally always prefer one with SPF 50+ and remember that sunscreens with SPF 100 do not provide more protection, “they do not provide 100% protection”: “There is a minimal difference between a sunscreen with SPF 50 + and SPF 100, so it’s not worth paying the difference in price.” To summarize, Helena Rodero recommends using the following abbreviations when choosing a sunscreen: “SPF 50+” or “UVA”.