Homemade Sunscreen / Protecting Your Skin this Summer

Before now I have been one of the many moms who liberally coats their children with sunscreen while outside during the summer months. Trees are far between here, so there isn't much protection from shade. I remember seeing the aerosol baby sunscreens and thinking - NEAT! So much easier to apply and the bottle says "natural" or "designed for baby" or whatever. Funny thing is, I never really knew what was in them and kind of assumed some government agency was looking out for my best interest and making sure there was nothing bad in sunscreen..

Welp, I was wrong. Ever seen oxybenzone on the back of your sunscreen bottle? Did you know it's a synthetic compound and hormone disrupter that is especially harmful to children, linked with low birth weight, cell damage and is a penetration enhance - meaning it helps other chemicals enter the body through the skin? The FDA says it's safe for use. During a 2003-2004 nutrition survey conducted by the CDC, 97% of urine samples collected contained oxybenzone. That means it doesn't stay on the surface of skin, it gets into our body and travels around.

The hot, burning sensation from too much sun is a natural protective mechanism for our bodies. Sunscreens that block UVB radiation (necessary for vitamin D production) better than UVA (the free-radical-forming, very damaging rays), can fool us into thinking we're protected simply because we have no burn.

Oh? And those aerosolized sprays - not so cool either. They can easily get into and coat the lungs of our kids. And titanium dioxide (one of the compounds used for broad spectrum sun protection) has been linked with cancer when inhaled.

p.s. I'm an armchair scientist, so I strongly urge you to do your own investigation. And strongly urge you to read the EWG's website.
Environment Working Group's Hall of Shame
New York Times Article

All this kind of hit home when I went to the dermatologist and had a suspicious mole removed. It kind of never entered my brain that I'd ever have something like that done, even though I have burnt often and spent a year in high school working at a tanning salon tanning regularly! So, I'm taking a little bit more care with mine and my family's skin. The reality is, skin cancer can be aggressive and deadly.

In my opinion, the best way to avoid all this mess is to just not put any synthetic chemicals in or on our bodies.

Steps I'm taking to Avoid Sun Overexposure:

1. Avoid outside play during 10am-4pm unless I have guaranteed shade. Lucky that when it's warm the day is long, so it's easy to get plenty of outside playtime out of these hours.

2. Use protective clothing. I haven't been able to find ANYTHING about UV treated clothing being harmful, so my kids (and hopefully I will have some soon) use it. If you know of something, send it my way. Hats, rash guards and swim suits for the kidlets.

3. Eat an anti-inflammatory, antioxidant-rich diet. Our bodies easily repair any damage the sun might be causing to our skin. Paleo = anti-inflammatory, antioxidant-rich. Check out:  Wellness Mama's Eat Your Sunscreen?  We eat Paleo and cod-liver oil, but we don't follow the other supplementation.

4. Making my own HOMEMADE sunscreen with Wellness Mama's Recipe. I will be doing a review post as all the ingredients just arrived tonight and I will be making them tomorrow.

5. Check yourself and get to that dermatologist. Make an appointment. Find someone to watch the kids. It took me a very long time to just even remember that I had this concern for myself before I sat down and made the call. For a person with melanoma, months of waiting can mean the difference life and death.

Goodbye Mole, I'll see ya on the flip side.

Good luck and don't burn!

P.s. Yuki, if you read this blog - I got this tattoo when I was 18 and yes I realize now how dumb it is to get kanji tattoos haha :) Someday I'll get that covered.