Do you sun-protect your child? by Best Facials Singapore
In this article, I would love to share my detailed research on sun-protection and what we can do for ourselves and our children.
What is UV?
The sunlight that reach us is made up of 2 types of harmful rays. Long wave ultraviolet A (UVA) and short wave ultraviolet B (UVB).
UVB rays will usually burn the superficial layers of your skin. It plays a key role in the development of skin cancer. The intensity of UVB rays vary by season, location and time of day, with 10am to 4pm being the peak hours. Sunburned skin doesn’t just feel awful, it can cause permanent damage over time.
UVA rays penetrate deep into the dermis, the skin’s thickest layer. It causes pre-mature aging and wrinkles.
What is SPF factor?
The SPF factor rates how effective the sunscreen is in preventing sunburn caused by UVB rays. If you’d normally burn in 10 minutes, SPF15 multiplies that by a factor of 15, meaning you could go 150 minutes before burning.
Keep in mind that the higher the SPF, the smaller the increased in benefit, contrary to what you might think. SPF 30 isn’t as strong as SPF15. While SPF15 filters out 93% of UVB, SPF30 filters 97% only a slight improvement.
So, which sunscreen best suit you and your children?
Clearly, you’ll want a sunscreen with broad-spectrum or multi-spectrum for both UVB and UVA. Ingredients include Benzophenones (oxybenzene), cinnanmates,salicylates, titanium or zinc oxide, avobenzone or ecamsule.
For KIDS and sensitive skin, we suggest to use sunscreen with physical blockers eg. titanium or zinc oxide instead of chemical filters eg. benzophenones which reacts only when UV rays hit the skin.
For both adults and children, it is important to protect the skin with a simple moisturizer eg. Guinot Sensitive Cream before applying any sunscreen. This is to prevent the heavy metals which act as UV reflector from congesting the pores. At the end of the activity, it is important to throughly cleanse the face with gentle make up remover, cleanser and toner.
Our favorite sunscreen includes Guinot SPF50, Maria Galland SPF50 and Babor SPF50. All of which are child friendly.
