Avoiding sunburn: 10 tips you should know

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Sunburn is dangerous – and can be brought quickly. Utopia gives 10 tips against sunburn – and tells in an interview why a high sun protection factor weighs many sun worshipers in false safety.

Sunburn should not be taken lightly. Acutely it can hurt badly, in the long term it can also lead to skin cancer and causes the skin to age. And you can get sunburned quickly: a person with fair skin can get sunburned after 10 minutes.

A sunscreen with sun protection factor 20 ideally ensures that these 10 minutes become 200 minutes.

  • 10 tips against sunburn
  • Home Remedies: Get Rid of Sunburn
  • Interview: sun protection factor

But is it enough to rub in sun protection factor 50 and hope for the best? It is not quite that simple: a high sun protection factor alone does not help against sunburn. The following tips are more important.

10 tips against sunburn

Sunburn tip # 1: get dressed!

Even if you prefer to wear little clothes at high temperatures, textiles are the best protection against sunburn. This also shows us robes from countries where it is really hot.

It helps Four-H rule (Hut, Heyelet, Hemd, Hhigh sun protection factor). But textiles also do not offer complete protection. Cotton lets through about six percent of the light, and even 20 percent when wet. So the wet T-shirt protects a little less against sunburn.

Sunburn tip # 2: take plenty of sunscreen!

Apply enough sun milk. Rule of thumb: 25 milliliters of sunscreen per full body application. That roughly corresponds to a shot glass. More helps more. Don’t forget your nose, ears, back of your feet and shoulders, these regions are particularly susceptible to sunburn.

Which cream should I use? We answer this question in these two articles:

  • Sunscreen for children at Öko-Test: the best sun protection for little ones
  • Sunscreen test: these are the best sunscreen 2020

Sunburn Tip # 3: Repeat the lotion

Only repeated application of cream helps against sunburn: “Waterproof sun milk” is not waterproof for an unlimited period of time, it rapidly loses its protective effect.

If you stay in the water for more than 25 minutes, for example when snorkeling, you should definitely protect yourself with clothing.

And: reapply the sunscreen even after it has dried. The protective film is also destroyed by excessive sweating or rubbing off.

Sunburn tip # 4: Sun protection factor cannot be extended

Repeated creaming is good and good, but if the sun protection factor is exhausted, it is pointless to apply it again. Only one thing helps: in the shade. This is one of the best places to avoid sunburn.

Sunburn tip # 5: Avoid the midday sun

To avoid sunburn, stay indoors at lunchtime if possible. Treat your skin to a lunch break from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. A siesta can also be quite nice.

Summer sun umbrellas sunshine beach vacation

Always good: look for shade! (Photo: Andreas Winterer)

Sunburn tip # 6: shade provides the best protection

Sunburn often occurs only because the skin has not yet got used to the sun. Stay in the shade for the first few days, but still wear sunscreen.

Sunburn Tip # 7: Get used to the sun slowly

20 minutes on the first day in the sun is enough, otherwise better under the shade or in the shade. Over the next few days, you can extend the time in the sun by a third compared to the previous day.

After a while you can go down a bit with the factor, but even heavily tanned skin has only a sun protection factor of 6 – not enough for sunburn.

Sunburn tip # 8: protect your eyes

Kerbholz to Stadtholz: 11 sustainable labels for sunglasses
Also important: sunglasses! (Photo: © Antonio Verde)

Get on with the sunglasses! If you look directly into the sun for too long, you can irrevocably destroy your retina – in seconds. Sunglasses absorb harmful UV radiation and thus protect the eyes from light damage (but you must not look directly into the sun with them).

Let the optician advise you, avoid cheap offers without a seal – this is also strategic consumption. Here also: Tips for sustainable sunglasses.

Sunburn tip # 9: Put on the sun hat

Cover your head! Parasols provide shade, but are not a substitute for a hat. Sunburn on the head can be particularly uncomfortable. A light sun hat made of natural materials is ideal.

Sunburn Tip # 10: Beware of young children

Infants and toddlers are particularly sensitive – the blazing sun is taboo for one-year-olds. Children under the age of three should only be briefly exposed to the sun.

For everyone: apply a good cream, put on a shirt and put on a hat, put on sunglasses and absolutely avoid sunburn. Early damage in the first three years can lead to skin cancer decades later.

Home remedies: Get rid of sunburn quickly

Often it is too late, then you want to get rid of the sunburn quickly:

  • Immediately out of the sun, without compromise. For several days!
  • Drink a lot (water and tea).
  • Wash and shower only cool (not hot, ice cold).
  • Wash and shower initially only without shower gel.
  • Moist envelopes with ice provide relief from pain. Hold the affected areas for 15 minutes several times a day. But: The ice must be separated from the skin by the envelopes and must not come directly to the skin, otherwise the freeze burn will result in sunburn!
  • After-sun lotions have a cooling effect above all, but do not repair any damage. Reach for alcohol-free and low-fat natural cosmetic products. A simple aloe vera gel from the pharmacy can help.

  • Home remedies such as coconut oil or apple cider vinegar help against mild sunburn.
  • In case of severe sunburn, blisters and open inflammation or even chills, you should avoid milk-based home remedies and see a pharmacy or better the doctor.

Also read this post:

By the way: additional lubrication with sunscreen does not help after sunburn – at most after-sun products. Read on here:

Interview: Why sunburn is not just a question of the sun protection factor

In an interview with dermatologist Gerrit Schlippe, Utopia explains why a high sun protection factor lulls the sun worshiper into false safety

Utopia: How does organic and conventional sunscreen work?

Gerrit Schlippe: So-called organic sunscreen works physically. It forms a thin protective layer that blocks UV rays that hit the skin. Titanium or zinc particles act like small mirrors in that they mainly reflect and scatter the sun’s rays and thus prevent penetration into the skin. The effect starts immediately after application without delay.

Conventional sunscreen, on the other hand, has a chemical effect. It is often the case that the molecular structure is split by UV radiation and converted into low-energy forms. The chemical ingredients often have to penetrate the skin and then work about fifteen to thirty minutes after application.

Utopia: It is well known that chemical substances trigger allergies. It has recently been reported that chemicals from sunscreen get into breast milk and can cause hormonal changes.

G.S .: A child will certainly not be harmed if his mother applies sunscreen. However, there is always debate as to whether frequent application or direct intake via the food route could be problematic for some substances.

You don’t necessarily have to have the highest sun protection factor

Utopia: Does biological sunscreen already offer sufficient protection despite a lower sun protection factor?

G.S .: A sunscreen with a factor of 20 already filters around 95 percent of the radiation. This is also achieved by the physical, ecological variant. I see a problem in the fact that the sun protection factors are very highly praised by industry and many think that it is absolutely necessary to use very high protection factors, i.e. 30s or 50s. These high values ​​are difficult to achieve with physical filters. But you can easily reach 20 to 25 protection factor values. That is perfectly sufficient if you act sensibly.

Because people just have to rethink a little. The best protection against UV radiation is still to avoid the sun or to stay in the shade. It is also more sensible and much easier to put on a t-shirt than to apply a very high sun protection factor. People should get used to a different behavior and, for example, stay in the shade from eleven to two or three in the afternoon. It is paradoxical to switch off common sense and weigh yourself in safety with sunscreen factor 50.

Utopia: Nevertheless, the value of the sun protection factor seems to be getting higher and better and thus suggests more safety. Does the industry provoke misconduct with the number game?

G.S .: The real question is: what do you want to achieve? People have all got used to the sun protection factors and say, for example: “I applied a sun protection factor 50, now I can stay in the sun fifty times longer”. This is nonsense. This is a theoretically calculated value, which at first sounds pretty nice on paper, but has various susceptibility to faults. In the experiments, for example, in which the sun protection factors are measured, an amount of 40 to 50 grams of sunscreen per whole-body creaming process is expected. This means that the 200 ml sunscreen tube should be empty after applying it five times, only then would the advertised sun protection factor be reached. So it’s about application quantities far from any reality. In addition, of course, you don’t apply a uniform cream everywhere.

Not all information makes sense

Utopia: Since 2009, the European Union has recommended that the UVA filter of a sunscreen should be at least a third as strong as the UVB filter. Previously, sunscreen had to block 90 percent of UVA rays – regardless of the sun protection factor. Some suppliers of organic sunscreen have subsequently withdrawn from the market.

G.S .: The UVA determination was first published by COLIPA (the European Cosmetics Association; editor’s note) in 2006 and is still frequently discussed, there have also been revisions. At that time, large manufacturers of sun protection products and sun protection ingredients were put together in working groups and published a normative table of values ​​that works better for some preparations than for others.

In addition to the worth discussing the scientific procedures, the question arises how useful the information is for the consumer. If the protection against UVA rays is a third of the UVB protection, the UVA radiation hits the skin unchecked after a third of the UVB protection time and not noticeably. If 30 UVB protection is applied, this has about 10 UVA protection according to COLIPA specifications. However, the body has no sensors for UVA rays, as for UVB radiation, here the skin becomes red and sunburn occurs. For example, if you have protected yourself with sunscreen and still could not avoid sunburn, you have already noticed two thirds more UVA radiation.

If one already promises sufficient UVA protection, then this should usefully be as high as UVB protection – otherwise the consumer will be weighed in a false sense of security, because UVA radiation in high doses is also harmful and can favor the formation of skin tumors .

Dr. med. Gerrit Schlippe is a dermatologist with a private practice in Münster and is head of Dermatest GmbH.

Avoiding sunburn: 10 tips everyone should know
(Photo: jivimages / Fotolia.com)

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