When you're out and about in the sun for the Car­ni­val sea­son and be­yond, it is im­por­tant to re­mem­ber to pro­tect your skin from the po­ten­tial­ly harm­ful rays of the sun. Re­mem­ber­ing to wear the right cloth­ing, ap­ply sun pro­tec­tion agents to our skin, or wear­ing shades are all things that many of us for­get to do most times when we go out in­to the sun­light. Re­mem­ber­ing them though could mean the dif­fer­ence be­tween sun­burned skin and skin un­af­fect­ed by the sun's harsh­ness, or it could even mean avoid­ing the po­ten­tial dis­ease of skin can­cer. The fol­low­ing guide­lines are handy to you avoid­ing dam­age to the skin from sun­light ex­po­sure. If in doubt about sun pro­tec­tion for your par­tic­u­lar type of skin or about the use of sun­screen prod­ucts, please see a doc­tor for ad­vice.

What is sun pro­tec­tion?

Sun pro­tec­tion is sim­ply guard­ing a body from the ad­verse ef­fects of sun­light. Aside from the haz­ards of heat, the sun pos­es the dan­ger of sun­burn, which can per­ma­nent­ly dam­age the skin and cause skin can­cer, pre­can­cer­ous changes in the skin, as well as pre­ma­ture wrin­kling and signs of ag­ing. Ex­po­sure to ul­tra­vi­o­let rays from the sun is a known risk fac­tor for the de­vel­op­ment of both melanoma and non-melanoma skin can­cers.

How is sun­burn best pre­vent­ed?

The best ways to avoid sun­burn are to lim­it time in the sun, es­pe­cial­ly be­tween peak sun­light hours of 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. Wear pro­tec­tive cloth­ing, in­clud­ing a broad-brimmed hat, a shirt with sleeves that cov­er the arms, and a long skirt or pants with long legs; and use a pro­tec­tive sun­screen to min­imise the pen­e­tra­tion of the sun's ul­tra­vi­o­let (UV) rays.

What is sun­screen?

Sun­screen is any sub­stance or ma­te­r­i­al that pro­tects the skin from UV ra­di­a­tion. Sun­screens are avail­able in the forms of top­i­cal lo­tion, cream, oint­ment, gel, or spray that can be ap­plied to the skin; a salve or stick that can be ap­plied to the lips, nose, and eye­lids; a moist­en­er in tow­elettes that can be rubbed against the skin; sun­glass­es that pro­tect the eyes; cer­tain types of sun-pro­tec­tion cloth­ing; and film screen that can be af­fixed to the win­dows of a car, room, or of­fice.

What is meant by SPF?

SPF, an ab­bre­vi­a­tion for sun-pro­tec­tion fac­tor, is a num­ber such as 15, 30, or 50 that in­di­cates the de­gree of sun­burn pro­tec­tion pro­vid­ed by sun­screens. SPF is re­lat­ed to the to­tal amount of sun ex­po­sure rather than sim­ply the length of sun ex­po­sure. It is a com­mon mis­take to as­sume that the du­ra­tion of ef­fec­tive­ness of a sun­screen can be cal­cu­lat­ed sim­ply by mul­ti­ply­ing the SPF by the length of time it takes for him or her to suf­fer a burn with­out sun­screen, be­cause the amount of sun ex­po­sure a per­son re­ceives is de­pen­dent up­on more than just the length of time spent in the sun. The amount of sun ex­po­sure de­pends up­on a num­ber of fac­tors in­clud­ing the length of ex­po­sure, time of day, ge­o­graph­ic lo­ca­tion, and weath­er con­di­tions.

How much sun­screen should be ap­plied?

A com­mon mis­take is ap­ply­ing too lit­tle sun­screen, which can dras­ti­cal­ly re­duce the ef­fec­tive SPF of the prod­uct. About 1 ounce (5-6 tea­spoons) of sun­screen is rec­om­mend­ed to cov­er the en­tire body. Fur­ther, sun­screen must be reap­plied every two hours when stay­ing out­doors for a pro­longed pe­ri­od of time. Sun­screen should al­so be ap­plied at least 30 min­utes be­fore go­ing out­doors. Peo­ple with sen­si­tive skin who burn quick­ly and must spend a lot of time out­doors should al­ways ap­ply a sun­screen with an SPF of 30 or more.

Do wa­ter or per­spi­ra­tion wash off sun­screen?

Yes. There­fore, sun­screen should be reap­plied at least every two hours when stay­ing out­doors for a pro­longed pe­ri­od and af­ter swim­ming, bathing, per­spir­ing heav­i­ly, or dry­ing off with a tow­el or hand­ker­chief. Wa­ter, and per­spi­ra­tion-re­sis­tant sun­screens are avail­able. How­ev­er, even their pro­tec­tion will not last in­def­i­nite­ly.

Ad­di­tion­al in­for­ma­tion from med­i­cinenet.com.