Fun in the sun?!?

OP

When it comes to the sun, yes, a lot of people are. And you only have to look at the number of recent sunburn/stroke threads to see that. I've learned the hard way, being blessed as I am with my skin tone.

Reply 2

pikaboo

13

It's gonna rain tomorrow :p:

Good idea for a sticky, though.

Reply 3

SamTheMan

17

pikaboo

It's gonna rain tomorrow :p:

Good idea for a sticky, though.

Bring on the rain. If I wanted ****ed up weather like this, I would have gone elsewhere. This is Britain for **** sake.

Reply 4

mousey

Nice thread Helenia. I would just like to add that when we say wear sunscreen - we mean lots!! Hardly anyone i know puts enough on, you should be smothered with the stuff, for example a blob the size of a £2 for your arm. Don't worry if you're all white, it will soak in in a fw minutes. If you do not put on lots and lots, the SPF doesn't mean anything. Also it takes about 20 mins for it to work, so try not to go out straight away. xx

Reply 5

pikaboo

13

I bet boaties get more sunburn. The radiation reflects off the water and intensifies the risk, eek.

I got sunburnt for the first time from just walking around all day, I didn't realise I'd need suncream for othert things as well as sunbathing in one position. Bah. :redface:

Reply 6

OP

pikaboo

I bet boaties get more sunburn. The radiation reflects off the water and intensifies the risk, eek.

I got sunburnt for the first time from just walking around all day, I didn't realise I'd need suncream for othert things as well as sunbathing in one position. Bah. :redface:

A girl in our first boat and in another college's first boat passed out during the last day of bumps racing and had to be taken to hospital. There were also a lot of attractive tan/burn lines on show at dinner afterwards.

Pete, unless you have something constructive to say you will continue to be moderated, albeit not by me. And please stop leaving a space before an exclamation mark.

Reply 7

Zarathustra

pete77

Oh dear !

Jus cause ur views dont agree with the moderator they are deleted !

Talk about freedom of speech !

It's not just that the mods disagree with you - your posts are pointless spam. I personally have been taking great pleasure in reporting them :p:

Zarathustra.

Reply 8

SamTheMan

17

Helenia

If it's too late for the above and you're already burnt, first thing to do is stay out of the sun!

If it's too late, call 999.... lol

That happens every year: people falling asleep in the sun on holiday and then waking up to find out they have second-degree burns.

How about mentioning that you can get burnt even if you're in the shade? A lot of people think they don't need to put suntan cream.

Reply 9

Barny

17

I'm a bit confused about the whole tanning thing - is it true that brown skin(from the sun) is damaged skin? If so, why does it matter if you burn or not, its going brown and getting damaged one way or another.

Surely putting on sunscreen means you're never going to get tanned, particularly if its something like factor 25? What benefits are there of tanning with sunscreen rather than burning and then tanning?

Reply 10

OP

imasillynarb

I'm a bit confused about the whole tanning thing - is it true that brown skin(from the sun) is damaged skin? If so, why does it matter if you burn or not, its going brown and getting damaged one way or another.

Surely putting on sunscreen means you're never going to get tanned, particularly if its something like factor 25? What benefits are there of tanning with sunscreen rather than burning and then tanning?

I'm not an expert on this but I think that tanning is where your skin cells are stimulated to produce more melanin which helps absorb UV rays and protects you from the sun. Burn is just that - the UV has frazzled your cells just as if you'd burnt them on something else hot. When the inflammation fades, there will be some tanning underneath as you will have been producing melanin.

Suncream reduces the amount of UV getting to your skin, particularly the harmful type (can't remember which one this is) that causes cancer. You will still tan as there's enough getting through to stimulate melanin production, but it will be much slower. Burning is more dangerous though as you'll have damaged more of the cell's DNA and therefore more likely to become cancerous later on. My skin tone is such that I never get very tanned even if I burn and go brown later - I just look a bit like I haven't washed for a while. So I prefer to protect myself and remain pale and wan. The TB look is soooo gonna be back in one day!

Reply 11

*Mina*

I did that thing of falling asleep in the sun and waking up with second degree burns on my shoulders only recently! because Im really pale and it was pretty much my first time in the sun this year....they blistered and looked really horrible and were very painful! But anyways I read somewhere that there's two types of sun rays.....UVA and UVB ones, and the SPF rating only shows you how well a type of suncream protects against UVA ones, and you're supposed to look on the back of the bottle where there's a star rating out of 5 for how well they protect against UVB rays. It just baffled me that this hadnt been made common knowledge.....and I wander if anyone else knew? cos I certainly didnt before

Reply 12

mousey

Yeah i knew that. Someone correct me if i'm wrong but i think UVA is the cancer causing type and UVB is the aging your skin type. Neither are fun so wear cream! xx

Reply 13

gemgems89

15

I have quite dark skin, I mean it's not that dark. I just have that tanned look. I've never been burnt before. But i dont know what factor to wear. Im goin somewhere very hot. So far I have bought factor 30 and 15. do you think 30 is a bit much since i dont have really pale skin? as im goin for 4 weeks i was thinking of just putting 30 on for the first 1 or 2 weeks and then use 15. what do you think?

Reply 14

ciara

13

Thanks for this thread!!

Am getting really annoyed/concerned at loads of my friends' attitudes to the sun. Ok, so I'm really pale and never gonna get a natural tan, but most of my friends are pretty white too, yet as soon as the sun comes out they're desperate to get a tan and often don't use suncream. One of them even uses sunbeds!! They think it's reallly cool when they're all tanned (even if it is a rather pinkish shade of tan), and if I try to express my concern they just think I'm jealous of their amazing ability to be vain enough to give themselves skin cancer (sorry, i mean tan :p:

).

It's crazy that people aren't more concerned, especially when we have a higher rate of skin cancer in the UK than in places like South Africa, and that's because when there's sun (ie most of the time!) they don't all run out trying to tan quickly. The main way we can change this is to change our attitude. I'm not saying people shouldn't tan or anything, plenty of people have skin which means they can't help going really brown. Just making the point that if you're not one of those people, put your health before your looks. You'd be stupid not to!

*gets off soapbox*

Reply 15

CornishGirl

I don't like getting tanned. I prefer to just have my naturally white skin.

Reply 16

Cazzi

12

CornishGirl

I don't like getting tanned. I prefer to just have my naturally white skin.

neither do i.........besides i cant go out in the heat for too long whether i want to or not.

i get servere heat bumps (prickly heat), which i cant really do much about :frown:

Reply 17

OP

gemgems89

I have quite dark skin, I mean it's not that dark. I just have that tanned look. I've never been burnt before. But i dont know what factor to wear. Im goin somewhere very hot. So far I have bought factor 30 and 15. do you think 30 is a bit much since i dont have really pale skin? as im goin for 4 weeks i was thinking of just putting 30 on for the first 1 or 2 weeks and then use 15. what do you think?

It's better to be safe than sorry, and especially if you're going somewhere even sunnier than this place (where it has now started raining just to spite my thread-making!) wearing 30 won't hurt, though you will tan much slower than usual. If you're not burning though, dropping to 15 after a week or two is probably ok.

Ciara - my schoolfriends used to be like that, one of them even ended up in the san because she got heatstroke and was burnt so badly. They always thought I was odd for wearing suncream and trying to stay in the shade the whole time, but I'm not the one having moles removed already (as one of them has). Fortunately most of my uni friends are a bit more sensible, though there were a lot of very pink boaties after the last day of racing!

Reply 18

Adarah

16

imasillynarb

I'm a bit confused about the whole tanning thing - is it true that brown skin(from the sun) is damaged skin? If so, why does it matter if you burn or not, its going brown and getting damaged one way or another.

Surely putting on sunscreen means you're never going to get tanned, particularly if its something like factor 25? What benefits are there of tanning with sunscreen rather than burning and then tanning?

The UV rays damage the DNA in your skin each time you are exposed to the sun. If you have darker skin less UV light penetrates your skin and less damage is done (but our body needs some UV light for certain processes, so that's why we don't all have dark skin by nature). Normally we would not be exposed to a lot of light in winter and so that our body can still get enough sun light we turn white and when there is too much sun in summer, our body slowly builds up a tan over spring to stop too much light getting at us.
By living indoors a lot and going to tanning studios or suddenly exposing our skin to more sun light than it can take (like going on holiday somewhere warm when we normally live near the north pole or such like :wink:

) and that is of course bad as our DNA is then damaged more than our natural defences can cope with.
Each time you go into the sun your DNA is damaged and then when the body repairs you damaged DNA is snips out little bits of DNA that then tell your skin to 'go brown'. So if you go and spend a day in the sun and are very brown afterwards it is because you DNA has been damaged a lot that day. Next time you go in the sun though you DNA will not be damaged as much as less light will reach it.
I'm no expert on all this, but it seems to be you want to avoid too much DNA damage really, so best thing is build up a tan slowly and gently and if you are very fair skinned, not to go out into the summer sun without protection because you'll just be damaging your skin and inviting cancer. You can go out if the sun is not very strong, but a lot of red-headed people do not tan easily (because the clime they are originally from nearlly never has such strong sunshine to make that necessary) - but if they go on holiday to somewhere very sunny, they are better off just putting on a lot of suntan cream, because before they manage to develope a tan more DNA will have been harmed than a person who naturally goes brown fast. If you tan quickly then it takes less damaged DNA to get a tan so it's a bit safer.
Still, best thing to do is just wear sun screen.

Reply 19

Mishael