{"id":605,"date":"2010-06-16T07:45:16","date_gmt":"2010-06-16T15:45:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/katherinemalmo.com\/blog\/?p=605"},"modified":"2010-06-17T20:03:16","modified_gmt":"2010-06-18T04:03:16","slug":"sunscreens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.katherinemalmo.com\/blog\/2010\/06\/16\/sunscreens\/","title":{"rendered":"Sunscreens"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"

Stop with the hormone disruptors, Mom. Sheesh!<\/p><\/div>\n

Let me first apologize for being SO late on this. For heaven’s sake it\u2019s mid-June and I still haven\u2019t written anything about sunscreens. It\u2019s hard to feel a sense of urgency when it\u2019s raining<\/em>.<\/p>\n

This is one of those stupidly-complicated topics. There\u2019s a lot to cover here, no time to dilly-dally, no messing around, I\u2019m going to get right to it.<\/p>\n

First, the Vitamin D issue… We need Vitamin D for bone strength, strong immune system function, and studies<\/a> have suggested high levels may reduce the risk of some forms of cancer. Many of us who live in the northern territories (rain!<\/em>) are D deficient. The best source of Vitamin D is sunshine on bare, sunscreen-free skin for about 20 minutes a day.<\/p>\n

The best way to prevent sunburns is to cover up. Wide brimmed hats, light-weight, long-sleeved shirts, tube socks worn under Velcro sandals are all a good way to go. OK, you can skip the tube socks, but they epitomize how I feel when I go into the sun completely covered: like a total nerd. I save this special look for working in the yard or any time I don\u2019t really care. Whenever I can go with a completely, or partially, covered look I do. I\u2019m always in search of cute sun hats (that also double as rain<\/em> hats).<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re going to wear sunscreen, the Environmental Working Group\u2019s (EWG) 2010 Sunscreen Guide<\/a>.\u00a0 is a great resource. When choosing a sunscreen, the first question to ask is: can I tolerate a mineral sunscreen? If yes, the EWG approved mineral sunscreens listed here<\/a> offer the best protection without any chemicals considered to be hormone disruptors.<\/p>\n

Mineral sunscreens are often thick and white and don\u2019t rub into the skin completely. I\u2019ve yet to find one that doesn\u2019t turn Josie\u2019s skin bright blue. I mean bright<\/em> blue. She doesn\u2019t burn easily and I do my best to keep her covered. If I can\u2019t keep her covered and we\u2019re working in the yard or somewhere she won\u2019t get strange looks, I put mineral sunscreen on her. If we\u2019re out at a beach or some fun place with other people and I don\u2019t want her to look like she just stepped out of Avatar<\/em>, I occasionally (but rarely) put a non-mineral, well-rated sunscreen<\/a>, which contains at least one hormone disruptor, on her exposed skin.<\/p>\n

Gasp! A hormone disruptor on my baby? This is a good time to remember that we\u2019re trying to decrease the overall toxic load on our bodies across a broad range of categories (foods, cosmetics, air quality, etc). We (and by we I mean I) do the best we can but sometimes we have to compromise even for purely cosmetic purposes.<\/p>\n

Of the 500 sunscreens the Environmental Working Group evaluated, they recommend only 39 (8%). Here\u2019s why<\/a>:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Many sunscreen manufacturers make exaggerated SPF claims that cannot be proven.<\/li>\n
  2. There’s new information on two common sunscreen ingredients:\u00a0Vitamin A and Oxybenzone. A recent study found tumors and lesions develop faster on skin coated with Vitamin A and Oxybenzone is a synthetic estrogen found in 97% of bodies that were tested by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    If you have a sunscreen you use and love, you can look for its rating here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

    If you want to buy a product not on the list, here are some things to keep in mind:<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. Stick to SPF 15-50<\/li>\n
    2. Avoid ingredient Vitamin A also known as retinyl palmitate<\/li>\n
    3. Avoid ingredient oxybenzone<\/li>\n
    4. Avoid sunscreens with insect repellant<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      In case you couldn\u2019t already tell, the federal Food and Drug Administration still has not issued regulations for sunscreens makers. Thank goodness for EWG.<\/p>\n

      Now, get out there and enjoy the sun, but for heaven\u2019s sake, don\u2019t tell me about it (rain!<\/em>).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      Let me first apologize for being SO late on this. For heaven’s sake it\u2019s mid-June and I still haven\u2019t written anything about sunscreens. It\u2019s hard to feel a sense of urgency when it\u2019s raining. This is one of those stupidly-complicated topics. There\u2019s a lot to cover here, no time to dilly-dally, no messing around, I\u2019m […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,5,7,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-605","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mom","category-cancer","category-hmn-reports","category-popular"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.katherinemalmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/605","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.katherinemalmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.katherinemalmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.katherinemalmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.katherinemalmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=605"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.katherinemalmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/605\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":614,"href":"https:\/\/www.katherinemalmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/605\/revisions\/614"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.katherinemalmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.katherinemalmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.katherinemalmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}