UV-A Blocking Essentials
With summer approaching, many people living in the Northern hemisphere have booked their holiday in the sun. Armed with their favourite sun block, they feel immune to the ravages of premature ageing and skin cancer.
Experts are finally warning about the folly about relying on sun blocks without looking beyond SPF factor. We recently discussed the fact that sun block may be inadequate protection against melanoma. Sun block mis-labelling is back in the limelight again.
Part of the reason why UV-A is so poorly protected against is because there is no universally agreed upon method of grading UV-A protection. If the sun block is highly effective against UV-B rays, 60% of UV-A rays can still penetrate the barrier and cause deadly melanoma.
We are only starting to see the effects of this mis-advertisement. The many people who slathered on their sun protection and baked all summer in the 1980s and 1990s are finally starting to develop skin cancer.
This has led to the lawsuit against 5 of the largest sun screen manufacturers, including Nutrogena and Hawaiian Tropic.
Work is progressing towards the development of good UV-A protection and grading system.
In the meantime, check your sun block label to check for broad coverage for both UV-A and UV-B. Both anchor sun protection products at Simply Aesthetic have UV-A and UV-B coverage. We highly recommend Skin Tech’s Melablock-HSP and Bellewave’s UV Smart for their excellent protection.
Source: Times Online