Wednesday , August 21 2019
Home | Health | Sunscreen, Good or Bad?

Sunscreen, Good or Bad?

By now, everyone probably has their own views when it comes to sunscreen. Some say it is vital to protect your skin against the sun, whereas others believe that it is simply a product that scams you out of your money. Well, the following story sheds some true light upon the subject matter.

As it turns out, aside from on the beach not that many use sunscreen on a regular basis anyway. After a completed survey, only 30% of women admitted to applying sunscreen when they knew they would be outside for several hours, and men’s results were even lower at 14%. Some men were even reported as having never used sunscreen before in their lives. The Environmental Working Group released their research on sunscreen, and the results, depending on your views on sunscreen can be either surprising or reassuring. The EWG concluded that most of these products provided “inferior sun protection or contain worrisome ingredients like oxybenzone and vitamin A,”. For those who do not know, oxybenzone is a chemical which has the potential to disrupt the hormonal system for both men and women and vitamin A has some evidence supporting that it promotes the idea of increased sun sensitivity. Neutrogena seems to be highly at fault for claims like these. They are the ones promising products that provide protection, when in fact their sunblock product contains chemicals that have been ruled as unsafe in Europe.

So is sunscreen good or bad? I ultimately think that that decision is up to you. If sunscreen really did not work at all, I do not understand why people would buy it after the first time, assuming that they got burned the first time they used it. There is just so much controversy behind it, and I am not sure what to believe anymore. I would rather just spend less time outside on scorching hot days, or just not worry about the sun. It seems these that products are supposed to protect us from the sun are the ones potentially causing us more damage than the sun itself. If the research behind vitamin A increasing sun sensitivity is true, then sunscreen could very well be a scam, where the companies who make it want the customers to buy more and more, and also want them to assume that they got burnt the last time because they did not use enough, when the product itself is what’s increasing the likely hood of burning! Remember, the sun is not all bad either. The sun provides us with vitamin D, a vitamin that keeps humans in a good mood when exposed to adequate amounts of it. With all that said, I would advise everyone to do their own research on the sunscreen they use and make an informed decision on whether to buy it or not.


About Kerry Dennison

Kerry Dennison