Pale and interesting - 7 April 2008

Posted by Felicity 1 comment

Ouch!

This week, I’m going off-piste on the topic of snow white limbs – I know it’s awful, but I believe I do look healthier with a bit of a tan – difficult for the likes of me to achieve, granted my pale (at times almost blue) skin. Every single time I go on a beach holiday, I am suddenly completely committed to getting my tan as dark as possible. I know it’s wrong, I know it’s bad, and it’s even worse that I turn into this sun worshipping nut because I happen to be Australian, and most Australians are now (after years of melanoma horror), very against frying oneself in the sun. Having lived in Blighty for many years, I know Brits are a bit more lackadaisical about their attitude to tanning, but let me tell you, sunbathing is a fool’s paradise.

As you may remember, I was on holiday in Dubai the other week, and in my usual beach holiday lapse of judgement, for some reason I decided not to put sun cream on my knees for half an hour or so, just to, you know, “give them a head start.” As you can see, that was a bad idea. Not only did I have to use factor 60 for the rest of the holiday, I also had to continue popping Panadol Extra for the pain and wear my friend Simon’s white board shorts to the Wild Wadi Water Park in order to protect my knees. Slathering on a 3mm thick layer of third-degree burn treatment cream twice-daily also added to the indignity, making me look as if I was preparing to swim the Channel.

Not protecting your skin from the dangers of UV rays as a matter of course (and this includes under your make up on a cloudy day) has a profound effect on how your skin ages. Sunbeds are even worse and I don’t care if you say that you use them in winter to perk yourself up, there are better and healthier ways of obtaining your vitamin D, people.

I received an interesting press release from the British Association of Dermatologists this morning. They recently conducted a survey on Britons’ attitudes towards skin cancer, revealing that half of the respondents would not recognize the signs of a possible skin cancer, and a quarter did not rate sun protection as an effective way of preventing ageing. Sun Awareness Week takes place from 5 – 11 May and runs throughout the summer.

I’m not so naïve as to think that my wee blog will have any effect on your attitudes toward the sun, but if you seriously care about the way you look, then it’s better to protect yourself from premature ageing than to spend your time, money, self esteem and pain threshold trying to reverse its effects later on – it’s not just cosmetic, it could cost you your life.

What do you think? Do you think attitudes are starting to change? Given that fake tan treatments are getting better and more convincing, would you consider using them as an alternative?

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