Who doesn’t feel that way about the sun? When the sun is shining and you can see the clear blue sky everything seems to be ok for those few moments or hours.
Everything about being outside is natural and usually makes us feel better. But we have to be sun smart and know how to enjoy the sun safely.
We all know we should wear sunblock, but which ones should we wear? Which brands actually protect us and which cause us more damage?
We live in a time where we have an abundance of free information at our fingertips. Sometimes there is too much, it can be overwhelming. Social media platforms have turned into how to guides for just about everything. We want to use this to our advantage and become as informed as possible. The more we know the more we are in control, we have the right to informed consent.
When it comes to sunscreen there are so many big words but we’ll try to break it down so that everyone can understand it.
To eliminate toxins in your life as much as possible you want to be sure that the products you use everyday have little to no chemicals in them.
Non-mineral sunscreen is a chemical formula and almost all conventional sunscreens obtain very harmful chemicals.
Our skin absorbs EVERYTHING we put on it so we’d only want to use the best quality we can find.
Buzz words to look out for when looking at ingredient lists:
Octinoxate- Hormone disruptor, it affects the thyroid and its found in mother milk so it goes through you body and into the baby
Oxybenzone & Homosalate- connected to Hormone disruption
Less common ingredients:
Avobenzone, Octisalate (absorbs UVB and makes you water resistant) & Octocrylene
SPF isn’t the best indicator of Sun Protection, most of the time it only protects against UVB and not UVA.
Natural sunscreens to look out for are:
Supergoop, thinksport, acure, suntegrity, All good, Goddess garden, and badger.
The active ingredients should be zinc oxide and inactive ingredients can be sunflower seed oil, beeswax, vitamin E or sea buckthorn. And it’s even better if it’s all organic!
Love,
Your partners in wellness at Tourmaline Collective
