So let me tell y’all about the crazies I work with. I burn easily, and there is very little shade, so I store sunscreen everywhere. My desk, the bathroom, my bag, the car, the office supply closet, etc. I often use it and offer to my colleagues when anyone needs to go out for a while.
We got a new guy on the team, he’s going out, I suggest he take some sunscreen. He tells me that sunscreen is poison and that you don’t really need it as long as you don’t wear sunglasses. He tells me that it’s wearing sunglasses that actually causes you to burn because your eyes don’t get as much sun so your brain doesn’t send the right chemicals out to protect your skin.
So blind people never get sunburn? Or always get sunburn?
Idk. He said his wife still demands sunscreen for their children, so I’ll let him fry himself in peace.
Sometimes I think I’ve heard all the batshit nonsense. Other times I read something like this.
I have a running list of shit I’ve heard from this guy. I’m positive it’s something from Alex Jones or similar.
Yeah I’ve seen an upsurge of people claiming sunscreen is toxic poison. Not sure where the fuck they pulled that from
Everything that will kill you A to Z.
S is for sunscreen, but also the sun. Both give you cancer, isn’t that fun.
I am aware of this, and believe it is real. However this wasn’t even his argument.
It’s a good thing my skin isn’t made of coral.
Some of the chemicals do show up a bit in blood, but there’s no evidence it’s toxic iirc.
Maybe they read something about the titanium dioxide contained in some sunscreen products. There is some research indicating that its not as safe as we thought and that it might be carcinogenic.
It might be but sunburn is definitely carcinogenic.
On the other hand, what bullshit is it that my stupid human body can’t survive being outdoors without medicinal cream. My ancestors would be ashamed.
Mud and henna masks and other full skin coverings are extremely common among indigenous people and presumably your ancestors as well.
Your ancestors had melanin production to fit their sun exposure and seldom lived past 40
Maybe tens of thousands of years ago, but 2000ish years ago 60ish was old age. The main reason life expectancy has gone up isn’t that old people didn’t make it to 50, it’s that young people didn’t make it to 2. If a couple has 5 kids, 3 of them die as toddlers and the other two make it to 70 the average life expectancy is about 30, but that doesn’t mean living past 30 is unusual.
Also, tens of thousands of years ago there was an ice age, but for the last 10k years light-skinned Europeans still had normal summers and worked in the fields.
Yes, that is when we evolved
You must know how averages work. The poster is correct. Average age at death is a horrible metric when you have gigantic birth and infant mortality rates.
No, I mean that for the brunt of humans evolving to be genetically roughly what we are today, it is unlikely many people were living much past their prime. I am talking about roughly 100,000 years ago up to around 10,000 years ago when humans developed from a largely hunter-gatherer lifestyle.
People who live a hunter-gatherer lifestyle today live 65+ regularly. The average may be lower for uncontacted peoples for various reasons, or higher because of reduced disease transmission. I imagine it depends on the group.
Now, I will give you that humans have refined their techniques of hunting etc over that 90k years in a way that caused less accidental deaths.
The crux of the matter though is that the statistical averages you have seen are flawed by infant mortality. In these societies, if you made it past toddler age you were statistically likely to live a long time.
What would be killing people much past their “prime” and how do you define prime?
And only then?
Speak for yourself.
Your ancestors didn’t shave
I don’t either, but my nose isn’t hairy and it would burn to a crisp outdoors.
It’s actually irritating to me that the sun is bombarding us with ionizing radiation
(I know, not the same intensity) but think about the amount of precautions we take before turning on a UV lamp. Or before turning on a very bright LED which you are not supposed to look directly at. Well, neither you should look directly at the sun, but you get the idea
In a perspective, sun is so radioactive it can even decay paint and plastic! It can literally cook you alive and make your skin fall in pieces. This just seems usual to us because we were born with it, people would freak the hell out if a medical procedure had the same side effects
Look, I can make a right wing campaign out of this! BAN THE SUN SAVE YOUR KIDS FROM 800T (Terahertz) RADIATION
It’s actually irritating to me that the sun is bombarding us with ionizing radiation
Yeah, it’s called a sunburn!
I’m sure you could get signatures as long as you don’t use the word sun, similar to that ban dihydrogen monoxide bit. Take video.
>be me
>white as everliving fuck
>put on 60 spf sun screen, as you should, and set a timer for an hour and a half to reapply, earlier than the recommended 2 hours
>alarm goes off, reapply
>STILL GET SUNBURNEDmfw
I used to have that problem. I switched to 30 spf and don’t get burned anymore. I can’t really explain it, but my theory is that 50+ is marketing BS and doesn’t actually do anything. Or it could be that Banana Boat brand just really sucks and Hawaiian is more like lotion so it actually stays on my skin and also moisturizes, which probably helps because dry skin = gonna get burned.
Lotion is good for the first coat, but the spray is so much easier to apply when you’re already sweaty and sand is everywhere.
Get 100 spf, I’ve never even tanned on that shit.
The difference between SPF 60 and 100 is like 1.1% better UV blocking, anything over SPF 50 is in a practical sense nearly useless.
For instance SPF 30 blocks 97% of UVB rays, is it worth paying more and slathering more potentially harmful (to the environment) compounds on your skin for 98% blocking? I think not.
I used to think the same thing, but the thing is we don’t care about the energy that goes into the sunscreen, we care about the remaining percent that goes into the skin. If you go from a sunscreen that absorbs 98% of the sun’s energy to one that absorbs 99% you are halving the amount of energy your skin is exposed to.
If you’re still getting burned with 98% absorption, then increasing that number by 1% would actually make a huge difference. And that’s without even considering things like having a safety margin for improper application.
Fair point
what if your skin has a hit point system and that 1% difference is the breaking point of sunburn
They’ve cracked the code…
Seems like in real world use it makes a difference.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0190962219327550
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29291958/
From another thing I read, people have a tendency to not apply enough sunscreen or apply it correctly. I’m sure if everyone did it perfectly it wouldn’t matter. All I know is anecdotally, when I switched to 100 I stopped getting sunburns, and I have been in situations with people who used their own lower spf, got a little burned still, and I came out of it pale white.
The price might be higher, but a quick look on Amazon and I’m seeing more than spf affecting that. The brand I buy is about 1.80 (usd) per ounce, and i see other brands with less spf for more. I see other brands with the same spf for less, and it seems like it’s between ~1.10 per ounce to ~2.80 per ounce so I’m not really bothered by my price. I don’t know anything about the environmental differences between spf so I won’t comment on that.
The average person should almost certainly not be using it, but maybe it would make the difference for extremely sun sensitive people.
If someone is that sensitive to sun they should start picking up fashion tips from the Bedouin.
I have never in my life seen anything seen anything higher than 50+
I once somehow got sunburned while inside my bedroom
Not wearing sunscreen and getting a sunburn is a psyop to get men to buy more aloe vera.
Put that shit in the refrigerator, it’s awesome.
Which, btw, might feel kind of nice, but you’ll still get skin cancer.
You got to give props to the people who convinced idiots that sunscreen causes cancer.
Yeah… The number of times I’ve heard something along the lines of “the sunscreen is worse for you than the sunburn” is too many.
I hadn’t heard that one. Somehow I’m not surprised though.
The worst is when is a cloudy Summer day and you’re like there’s no sun mf, no need to sunscreen! But you still get burned the fuck out.
mate it’s £5-10 for a 200ml bottle I’d hardly call that cheap
I have autistic sensory issues and the cheapest one I can at all tolerate to have on my skin is 15€ for 50ml. I have so many of the 5-10€ bottles at home and can’t handle any of them. Fml
In the city of Utrecht NL they have free sunblock stations spread around the city. It shows the temp and UV rating. But buying it in store is crazy expensive and often the quality is poor. Some fancy tiny spray bottles go up to 12 euros, only good for 3 to 4 uses. wtf. Imagine being ginger, there’s a ginger tax called sunblock.
As a ginger- the petrol money to go shop in Germany at DM or Rossmann is cheaper than the ginger tax here.
Then don’t buy the fancy spray bottles, but the big one that lasts for a year or three?
I’m not buying the fancy expensive shit. But the cheap stuff fills pores and creates pimples. Also, don’t use the one from last year, it has an expiration date. The protection goes down significantly.
Good point with the expiration date, but the one I have has >1 year, possibly longer since I cannot remember when I bought it
WTF are those prices. I’d start looking into importing from abroad …
Cost of living in the UK is up 25% since Brexit happened in 2021.
“We’ve become the first country in the history of the world to have placed economic sanctions upon itself” -James O’Brien
We’re a population of morons who will still blame anything but ourselves for the position we’re in.
The British are the Americans of Europe, so that makes sense.
Like father, like son.
Here in the Netherlands it’s expensive as well. Like a small bottle of name-brand sunscreen is €30.
I buy the store brand from the local supermarket. €2,99 for a 250 ml bottle of SPF 30 and it works great. I never get sunburn, even during multi hour bike rides in the blazing sun.
I would wear suncream more often, but:
- I’m allergic to something in most brands of suncream so if I run out I’m having to deal with rashes all over where I used it.
- I hate how it makes me feel slimy after using it
There’s this Loreal suncream spray I like that I can’t seem to find that feels like water and when it’s dry, it doesn’t feel like you have suncream on. It’s perfect for me! I’m not allergic to it either so I can actually go in the sun without turning red and blotchy!
Yeah, and it’s also def NOT cheap.
that feels like water and when it’s dry,
What does water feel like when it’s dry?
New question for the “water isn’t wet” fools unlocked.
But it isn’t. Technically.
Orly? Then:
What does water feel like when it’s dry?
Tiny tiny bits of electricity.
Nuh uh.
Key word being “and”.
only one way to find out
Clearly you’ve never met someone like my wife.
Cheap is not the case everywhere. In Germany it’s cheap, in the Netherlands it’s much more expensive and in Croatia a bottle is like 25 Euro
In the US it’s cheap but unregulated and full of shit that’s terrible for you. Or you can pay an arm and a leg for stuff that’s better but still not up to the standards of most other countries. I learned this by getting a chemical burn in my eye from sunscreen… meant for my face.
In the US it’s cheap but unregulated
It’s the exact opposite actually.
US sunscreen is way worse than sunscreen in other parts of the world like the EU. It doesn’t block the harmful radiation as well. The reason is that it’s more strictly regulated in the US. IIRC it’s not considered a cosmetic product but instead it’s a medical product.
As such it’s subject to much stricter regulation and requires much more (expensive) testing before being allowed on the market. Due to this it’s considered too expensive to introduce the newer, more advanced sunscreen products in the US so you’re stuck with the older, crappier sunscreen.
Edit: Ornery_chemist was a good dude and proved themselves wrong! Hooray! https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2024/05/18/1251919831/sunscreen-effective-better-ingredients-fda
I’m down voting both of you because neither provided sauce.
Whoever’s right, gets the updoot.
You can spent 10 seconds googling: Source
Phenomenal! Thanks for proving yourself wrong!
I didn’t present the evidence, ya’ll did. It’s on you, not nameless strangers on the internet taking a shit or doing other stuff.
I’m not sure I’d call US sunscreens way worse (they are still very effective at blocking UVB, just not UVA as effectively), but there are definitely better options abroad. There definitely aren’t many options; that’s part of why Hawaii banning two common sunscreen ingredients for marine toxicity reasons was such a big deal.
Oh, that’s bad. Made me think of this sunscreen and in Robocop 2.
The USA is the Wild West when it comes to safety standards of any product.
I was in Berlin last month and spent €16.50 for a 50ml bottle
i get burnt with multiple layers of sun lotion
“ball of fire”
Haha, no no. You threw down with a gigantic source of cell destroying radiation. The fire did no harm.
There’s no fire in the sun. Fire is some material oxidizing, and that’s not what’s happening (or at least not in relevant amounts). What creates the radiation is nuclear fusion.
A ball of constant unending nuclear explosion
Hypothetically speaking, will you get sunburnt if you sit near a fire all day?
The heat could dry out your skin, which, if I’m not mistaken, is essentially what a burn is. However, as the other person noted, a sunburn is damage from radiation, not heat. So I think you could stretch the common definition of a burn to call heat induced dry skin a burn but calling it a sunburn would not be accurate.
Heat is also (thermal) radiation. So is light, radio waves, microwaves, etc. However, the radiation from a fire or the other stuff I mentioned isn’t ionizing, so unless the heat itself does damage it won’t do cellular damage.
You also give off thermal radiation, but so does anything higher temp than absolute zero.
@xavier666@lemm.ee If you sit at a magnesium fire, it burns at 3300K, which is hot enough to produce sizeable ultraviolet rays. So you can get your sunburn from that, damaging the DNA in whatever of your remaining cells have not been melted away by heat.
Note to self - Don’t sit near a magnesium fireplace if you don’t want to tan your bones, which are now exposed due to the flesh getting melted off by the said fireplace.
Thanks. I completely forgot that the standard suntan or sunburn is caused by UV rays. A fireplace doesn’t create UV rays.
Why exactly do you think there is UV radiation coming from the sun?
Assuming this is a sincere question:
The sun emits a wide spectrum of radiation due to the nuclear fusion reactions occurring within it’s core. This includes everything from low energy non-visible radio waves and thermal radiation to high energy X-rays and gamma rays. Fortunately for us, the Earth’s electromagnetic field and atmosphere (especially the ozone layer) protects us from all but a tiny sliver of ionizing radiation or we wouldn’t be here to talk about it.
Also, hello again AES_Enjoyer, hope you’ve been well :)
Isn’t most of that radiation blocked by the outer layers of the sun, though? Like, sure, there is a non-negligible amount of high energy photons escaping, but the overwhelming majority of the radiation comes AFAIK from blackbody radiation from the plasma at the temperature of the surface of the sun?
And yo, mate, how’s it goin?
Because the spectrometer says so, mainly. Why?
Hahaha that’s a good one
If the cream wasn’t such a goddamn sensory nightmare…
UPF clothes FTWI’m just stayin inside
Ok Bo Burnham
but they’re specifically avoiding burning their hams
Went out to look for a reason to hide again
Pour one out for the back of my calves. Every summer I forget.
Incredibly, my legs somehow never get burnt
Same until I got a bicycle
