As we are now in the midst of one of the hottest summers on record, are you doing as much as you can to protect your skin from the potentially harmful, ageing effects of the sun’s rays? In this post, we discuss what you can do to prevent sun damage to your face and body.
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Sun exposure for your skin is the perfect example of “too much of a good thing”. While small amounts of sun exposure are very good for your skin, too much can have negative consequences.
The UV light in the rays from the big yellow ball in the sky is what causes sun damage to the skin, as it starts the process known as oxidation and breaks down elastin.
Elastin is a special fibre in the skin that maintains the elasticity that enables it to stretch or expand and bounce back. It gives your skin an overall, tighter appearance and stronger structure.
Over time with chronic sun exposure, this is worsened and can result in the skin being overstretched and saggy without the ability to bounce back.
Sun-damaged skin eventually leads to hyperpigmentation and sunspots and can even cause skin cancer in some people.
That is why you must follow health care professionals’ advice and our hints and tips to help avoid sun damage to your skin, especially highly visible sun damage to the face.
Always use a generous amount of sunscreen, at least 1 ounce should be applied and regularly topped up, be sure to use one with a 5-star UVA protection rating and a night-time SPF factor.
Below are our top tips to protect your skin and face from sun damage, with more detailed information underneath these tips:
Top Tips to Protect Your Face From Sun Damage
- Limit your sun time during peak hours. Depending on where you are, this is anything from 9 am to 4:30 pm
- Bring protective clothing with you just in case. Hats, long-sleeved t-shirt and long bottoms.
- Choose a sunscreen of at least SPF30, preferably 50 if you burn easily or it’s a very hot day.
- Choose a sunscreen with broad-spectrum sun protection which blocks both UVA and UVB rays.
- Apply 1 ounce of suncream – a shot glass worth – to provide enough coverage to your exposed areas
- Choose a water-resistant sunscreen formula
- Even then, reapply the cream every 2 hours or 40 minutes if you’re in the water
- Use sunscreen even on cloudy days
How Can You Choose the Best Sunscreen?
Crucial to understanding how long your sun protection lasts for is understanding how long it takes unprotected skin to sunburn. If you know that number, simply multiply that by the SPF rating and you have an approximate for how long you are protected.
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For instance, if you start to experience the noticeable effects of sunburn after being exposed to the sun for just 10 minutes, and you choose a sunscreen with an SPF 30, the length of time you are protected for is calculated as follows, 10 x 30, which equals 300-minutes, or 5 hours.
Obviously, if you spend any time in the pool, sea or other water or sweat, you will need to reapply your sun protection sooner.
What’s the difference between UVA and UVB rays?
UVB Rays
UVB rays aren’t quite as dangerous as UVA rays. They are characterised by the following traits:
- UVB rays burn the skin
- UVB rays cause most skin cancers
- Damages the surface layer of the skin
- Directly damages your DNA
- rays can’t pass through glass
UVA rays
UVA rays can cause serious sun damage and ageing on your skin. The more dangerous thing is that it doesn’t necessarily present with skin burning like UVB does, so you might not even know. This is why the advice is that you use sunscreen marked up as being “broad-spectrum”.
This means it has been tested to shield against sun damage to your skin caused by both varieties of UV rays. UVA rays do the following:
- Prematurely age skin
- Penetrate deeper into your skin than UVB rays
- They are associated with some skin cancer cases
- Can indirectly damage your DNA
- Cause wrinkles and age spots
- CAN pass through window glass (unlike UVB)
What are the signs of sun damage?
There are many different ways that damage caused by the sun can manifest itself on your skin. Wrinkles, blotches and spots are part of the damage caused by the sun. Some of the most common that you need to be aware of includes:
- Sunburn
- Wrinkles
- Rosacea
- Atypical moles
- Age spots
- Actinic Cheilitis
- Actinic Keratoses
- Poikiloderma of Civatte
What does sun damage on the face look like?
Initially, sun damage to facial skin changes its appearance to give it a darker hue, which is more commonly referred to by most people as a suntan, though it is technically sun damage.
This can turn to sunburn – varying degrees of redness and swelling – and cause uneven spikes in the production of melanin which, shows up as inconsistent colouring of your skin. It can also lead to more permanent overstretching of the skin’s small blood vessels, giving it a reddish and mottled appearance.
Can you reverse sun damage on the face?
It depends on how bad the sun damage is, but fortunately, it is possible to reverse sun damage to facial skin, as it is on any part of your body in most cases. The best way to handle sun damage is of course by preventing it in the first place, by wearing appropriate sunscreen (as outlined above).
Covering up sensitive areas of your skin also helps protect you, as does use common sense in hot conditions.
If it does occur, however, there are things you can do, such as:
- Exfoliate – surprisingly, or unsurprisingly if you know anything about our amazing bodies and the skin that covers them. Exfoliation can help to repair sun damage to your skin as it helps with the regenerative cycle of the skin. A word of caution; do NOT exfoliate freshly sunburnt skin as this may cause more damage than good.
- Vitamin A – Vitamin A is considered extremely important for skin health. Look for it in supplement formulations or buy it on its own.
- Topical Retinols – this is Vitamin A derivatives but in topical form and one of the most effective treatments for reversing sun damaged skin by increasing skin cell turnover.
- Laser Therapy – we would suggest that you give it considerable thought, but if necessary you can undergo laser therapy to help reverse the effects of sun damage to your skin.
- Chemical Peels – once the damage has settled, chemical peels which we offer here at Linia can increase cell turnover (the speed at which skin cells renew themselves)
What is the best treatment for sun damaged skin?
Aside from laser therapy, which produces the best results, if you want proper medical treatment, some cosmetic surgery procedures can help correct and repair sun damage on the skin, including microdermabrasion, microneedling and chemical peels.
If you want a consultation to speak to our dermatologists about sun-damaged skin, Book Your Consultation Today
