Welcome to The Holistic Skin Guru, where what's on the surface is

just as important as what's underneath. I'm your host, Aamena.

Let's dive deep into the world of holistic skincare. Hi

guys and welcome back to another episode and today we're going to be

talking about sunscreen. A very controversial

topic to some and it can spark a

little bit of debate. So if I contradict myself

it's just part of the information that's out there around

sunscreens. And I'm gonna dive

into it straight away. So what is sunscreen? Sunscreen is

a topical treatment that blocks the UV rays

or the sun rays from our skin to protect

it in some way or form. Many

of us don't actually think about why we need this. And I know

in Australia, there's more of us that are aware of

skin cancers and are aware of the damage that the

sun can do to our skin. And so for us, we're almost

being programmed into using sunscreens. Remember the Slip Slop Slap

campaign back in the 80s? As kids,

you know, we were trained into wearing sunscreens more

so than our parents and our grandparents. So

let's talk about that for a little while. If you've noticed, our

grandparents really didn't care about sunscreen much. In

the 70s and 80s, it was fashionable to rub coconut oil

all over your body and lay in the sun and present a

beautiful tan. And over the years, there's been a

huge campaign by governments and

the medical associations to get people to protect their

skin from the sun due to skin cancers. So

this is where it gets really interesting. They did a study

in, I think it was the US, it could have been the UK, so don't

quote me on that. They did a study at a university where

they grabbed some lab rats or

mice. So they did this experiment and they found that

when they put one group of mice who

were fed a nutritional diet

and exposed to some sunlight, normal sunlight

during the day. And then they took a second group of mice and

they fed them a high sugar, high calorie diet,

very much like what they call a typical American fast

food diet. And they put that group of

mice under the same amount of light each day, sunlight each

day as the first group. And they did this

for many, many months. And

they found that the group of mice that

had been exposed to or had been fed

a highly toxic diet developed

skin cancers. The ones that were eating a nutritious diet

did not. And they both had the same amount of

sunlight. So what is this telling us? This is telling us

that over the years, our diets have changed. Our

grandparents ate whole foods healthy foods,

in most cases they grew their own food and

we today, fast forward 80 years or 90 years, we

are the ones that are consuming high fat, high sugar

diets with a lot of processed foods and that

is affecting the way our skin functions. So

that's why I said that today's episode is going to be a bit controversial because

on one hand, I'm saying to you, wear the sunscreen. And

on the other hand, I know exactly why you need to

wear that sunscreen, because in the back of my mind, I'm

saying to myself, well, actually, we don't need the sunscreen because the

sun is good for us. Vitamin D is good for us. If

we looked after our bodies well and we

gave ourselves a nutritional diet and we looked after ourselves

that way, we probably would not need sunscreen but

because you know there's pollution in the air, there's preservatives

in our food, there's rubbish in our water,

all of that affects the health of our bodies and

is affecting the way our skin is reacting to

the UV light from the sun and it's presenting in a lot

of us as skin cancers. So something for

you to think about and a little bit controversial. I'll probably

have some people in the comments telling me off and that's fine

but this is what I have found in my research. So

how does the SPF work? There's two forms of SPF. There's a

chemical blocker and there is a physical blocker. So some

SPFs that you find, some sunscreens you'll find have

a very high ingredients of chemicals in them

that actually help to block the sun from

the skin. And then the more organic or

natural or holistic type of sunblocks, the ones that we carry have physical

blockers in them. So they contain zinc and

they are protecting the skin from the UV light that

way. So those are the two that you will see, the chemical blockers and

the physical blockers. And one more thing I'd like to

add is that when it comes to chemical blockers, there

are some chemical blockers, and this seems like an oxymoron to

me, but it's out there. The information is out

there. You can find it very easily. There are

some SPFs or sunscreens that contain chemicals

that actually cause cancer. So this seems counterintuitive, but

it actually is the case. And so please be wary about

what you put on your skin if you're buying sunscreens for the summer months

that are coming up in Australia. You might want to go to

the beach and you go to your local pharmacy or

your grocery store and you're grabbing SPF

for your kids. Please read the ingredients and try

to get physical blockers instead of artificial chemical

blockers for your sunscreens. We want to make sure that

when we go out in the sun, putting all of that aside that I

just mentioned, that when we go out in the sun, we

are not exposing our skin to

the sun in a negative way and causing other

issues such as hyperpigmentation. Pigmentation in

the skin is one of the most difficult things to treat. And

so by protecting our skin from the harsh rays of the

sun, and preventing that hyperpigmentation from

forming is probably the best thing for you. Prevention

is always better than cure. So that

is probably the biggest thing that we see is that people

are coming to us consistently asking us to treat them for

their pigmentation. And I've got some good news. I will do

another podcast on that. We've got another exciting treatment coming

that's going to help people with pigmentation issues. It certainly helped

me with my pigmentation. So cancer is a big thing and

especially in Australia with the ozone layer right above

us here in Queensland, we have been trained

and programmed to wear our sunscreens. All I'm asking for

you to do is look at the ingredients and make healthy choices

when it comes to your SPFs and understanding

how you need to reapply those. So

the SPF is the Sun Protection Factor and

it usually has a number next to it. You

might see SPF 10 or 15 or 30, sometimes you see 40, 45, 50 and

sometimes you even see 80 and 100. In

Australia I think the Medical Association doesn't

allow anything more than 50 but in other countries you may see 80 or

100 spectrum. All this means it gives

you an indicator of how often to reapply your

product. So, for example, if it takes you 10 minutes

to burn normally in the sun, what you would

do is you would take your sunscreen, which is, and

look at the SPF on it, if it says, say, SPF 30, for

example, what you do is you take the number 30 and

you multiply it by 10, the number of minutes it takes you to burn,

that will give you a number. So, you'll end up with 300. 300 minutes

is what that translates to. before you need to

reapply. That's what that means and

it's going to be different for every one of you. So if you know how

long it takes you to burn, do the calculation based on

the SPF that you're wearing and then you'll know how

often to reapply your SPF. So for all

you ladies who apply an SPF in the morning and I

know a lot of clients say to me, oh but my makeup has SPF in

it and that's fine. it may only have

an SPF of 15. And if it takes you 10 minutes

to burn, you're only covered for 150 minutes.

So if you're applying that at seven o'clock in the morning, by the

time you get to work and before you even get to morning tea, you

need to be reapplying. So this is something really

important for you to start thinking about. And so

yes, that number, the higher the number, the less frequently

you need to reapply. but it will also depend on

your skin's Fitzpatrick and how long it takes for you

to burn in the sun. So very important. I hope that helped you

to understand how to use your SPF correctly. And

if you have any questions, please feel free to leave it in the comments below.

I'll try my best to answer those questions on the next podcast.

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