Last year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (knowns as the CDC, a U.S. national public health institute) conducted a survey on sunscreen usage. The results were alarming, especially for someone who has battled melanoma and would hate to see anyone else have to go through the process.
Only 14.3% of men and 29.9% of women reported regularly using sunscreen on both their face and other exposed skin. Almost 44% of male respondents and 27% of females said they never use any sunscreen on their face… on their faces, people! The place that most of us are trying not to get sun damage. You know, wrinkles, age spots, moles, freckles are all caused by sun damage that could be protected by daily usage of a BB or CC cream with sun protection built-in!
Just because you want a tan, or because you are already tan, doesn’t mean that you can ignore the fact that exposure to the UV in sunlight can cause genetic mutations in your skin. As many dermatologists are fond of saying, there is no such thing as a “safe tan”. And people of color are routinely diagnosed later with skin cancer, which decreases the survival rate. And it’s not just melanoma that you need to worry about. Basal cell and squamous cell skin cancers, while not as deadly as melanoma, can be disfiguring if not caught soon enough.
Look, I’m just as guilty as the next on not remembering every single day to put sunscreen on every inch of exposed skin (although last post notwithstanding, I’m pretty much an “if there’s sunlight falling on it, it gets covered by either SPF or clothes” kind of person). But the never statistic is the one that really scares me. That’s a lot of people playing Russian Roulette with not only their looks but their health.